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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/77238-0.txt b/77238-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6372c4e --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9210 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77238 *** + + + + + THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS + IN LITERATURE + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation_ + +ALFRED NOBEL] + + + + + THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS + IN LITERATURE + _By_ ANNIE RUSSELL MARBLE + + + [Illustration] + + + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + NEW YORK :: MCMXXVII :: LONDON + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + TO + PAUL AND ANNA + + + + +PREFACE + + +These studies of Nobel Prize Winners in Literature have been the +result of research for several years and lectures upon the subject in +University Extension courses, before college clubs and other groups. +The vast scope of the subject suggests temerity in one who attempts +to treat it in such limited space. The writer realizes the inadequacy +of the book and possible conflicting statements because of diverse +authorities that have been consulted. After careful “siftings,” it is +offered as an incentive to further study, as a roadmap to many paths +of literary research. Biographical data and brief criticism of the +authors’ works are followed by a bibliography which is suggestive +rather than exhaustive. + +The writer of these chapters has been, in large measure, the recorder +of research by many individuals and educational institutions, with +personal deductions from wide reading. Among many books that have been +stimulating are _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg +Brandes, _Studies from Ten Literatures_ by Ernest Boyd, books upon the +drama and translations by John Garrett Underhill, Ludwig Lewisohn and +Barrett H. Clark, and studies of Knut Hamsun by Josef Wiehr and Hanna +Arstrup Larsen. Other specific books of interpretation are emphasized +in text and footnotes, as well as in bibliography. + +Gratitude that defies fitting words would be here expressed to Miss +Anna C. Reque of the Bureau of Information of the American-Scandinavian +Foundation, to the Svenska Akademien Nobelinstitut of Stockholm, to +Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard, Miss Svea Boson and Thekla E. Hodge for +translations, to Mr. R. F. Sharp of the British Museum, to Eugen +Diederichs Verlag in Jerla, to The Danish National Library, Copenhagen, +to Prof. Josef Wiehr, Prof. Kuno Francke, Francis Rooney, Esq., to +Mr. Theodore Sutro, Mr. Rupert Hughes, Miss Harriet C. Marble, and to +librarians of the Widener Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Miss Grace +W. Wood, Mrs. Helen Abbott Beals, and to librarians of the Widener +Library, Cambridge, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Free +Public Library of Worcester and many other sources of encouragement and +coöperation. + +Appreciation of permission to quote extracts from printed works and +to use illustrations is acknowledged to Sir Edmund Gosse, Mr. Rudyard +Kipling and his agents, A. P. Watt & Son, to editors of _The Atlantic +Monthly_, _The Bookman_, _The Edinburgh Review_, and the publishing +houses of American-Scandinavian Foundation, D. Appleton & Co., Boni & +Liveright, The Century Co., Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Dodd, Mead & +Company, Inc., Doubleday, Page & Company, Ginn and Company, Henry Holt +and Company, Houghton Mifflin Company, B. W. Huebsch, Inc., Alfred +A. Knopf, Inc., Little, Brown & Company, J. B. Lippincott Company, +Longmans, Green & Co., The Macmillan Company, Oxford University Press, +American Branch, The Pilgrim Press, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Charles +Scribner’s Sons, Thomas Seltzer, Inc., Leonard Scott Publication +Company, Herman Struck, W. P. Trumbauer, The University of Pennsylvania +and Yale University Press. + + ANNIE RUSSELL MARBLE + + Worcester, Massachusetts, + September, 1925 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + PREFACE vii + + CHAPTER + + I. ALFRED NOBEL: THE CONDITIONS OF HIS WILL AND LITERARY + RESULTS 1 + + II. POETS OF FRANCE AND PROVENCE 21 + + Sully-Prudhomme (1901) 21 + + Frédéric Mistral (1904) 31 + + III. TWO GERMAN SCHOLARS 42 + + Theodor Mommsen (1902) 42 + + Rudolf Eucken (1908) 48 + + IV. BJÖRNSON: NORWEGIAN NOVELIST AND PLAYWRIGHT (1903) 58 + + V. GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI--ITALIAN POET (1906) 72 + + VI. THE WRITINGS OF RUDYARD KIPLING BEFORE AND AFTER THE + AWARD (1907) 85 + + VII. SELMA LAGERLÖF--SWEDISH REALIST AND IDEALIST (1909) 104 + + VIII. PAUL HEYSE (1910)--GERHART HAUPTMANN (1912) 124 + + IX. MAETERLINCK--BELGIAN SYMBOLIST AND POET-PLAYWRIGHT + (1911) 148 + + X. RABINDRANATH TAGORE--BENGALESE MYSTIC-POET (1913) 159 + + XI. ROMAIN ROLLAND AND _JEAN-CHRISTOPHE_ (1915) 175 + + XII. A GROUP OF WINNERS--NOVELISTS AND POETS 189 + + Verner Von Heidenstam (1916) 189 + + Henrik Pontoppidan (1917) 197 + + Karl Gjellerup (1917) 201 + + Carl Spitteler (1919) 205 + + XIII. KNUT HAMSUN AND HIS NOVELS OF NORWEGIAN LIFE (1920) 213 + + XIV. ANATOLE FRANCE--VERSATILE STYLIST IN FICTION AND + ESSAYS (1921) 224 + + XV. TWO SPANISH DRAMATISTS 239 + + José Echegaray (1904) 239 + + Jacinto Benavente (1922) 247 + + XVI. W. B. YEATS AND HIS PART IN THE CELTIC REVIVAL + (1923) 253 + + XVII. HONORS TO POLISH FICTION 264 + + Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905) 264 + + Ladislaw Stanislaw Reymont (1924) 269 + + CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS IN LITERATURE 277 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 + + INDEX 301 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING + PAGE + + ALFRED NOBEL _Frontispiece_ + + FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL 32 + + BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON 58 + + RUDYARD KIPLING 86 + + SELMA LAGERLÖF 104 + + GERHART HAUPTMANN 134 + + MAURICE MAETERLINCK 148 + + RABINDRANATH TAGORE 160 + + ROMAIN ROLLAND 176 + + KNUT HAMSUN 214 + + ANATOLE FRANCE 224 + + JACINTO BENAVENTE 248 + + WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 254 + + HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 264 + + + + +THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS IN LITERATURE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ALFRED NOBEL: THE CONDITIONS OF HIS WILL AND LITERARY RESULTS + + +_Nobilius_ was the ancestral name, by tradition, of that family +whose representative, Alfred Nobel, has left a name synonymous with +inventiveness and large benefactions to humanity. The grandfather, +Imanuel, an army surgeon, is accredited with changing the family +name to _Nobel_. His son, Emanuel, father of Alfred, taught science +in Stockholm, as a young man. With inventive ability he experimented +with explosives, submarine mines, and other destructive forces and, +by paradox, became designer of surgical appliances and India-rubber +cushions to relieve suffering. He was interested in ship construction +and spent some time in Egypt. To his sons he transmitted his spirit of +scientific research, with all the dangers as well as the inspiration of +such ambition. Two explosions, during experiments with nitroglycerine +and other chemicals, caused severe loss. The first, occurring about +1837 in Stockholm, shattered the nerves of the people as well as their +windows, so that Emanuel went to Russia, on the advice of friends +prominent in affairs of industry and government. Here he was employed +by the Russians to continue his experiments with submarine mines; with +his family, he remained here until after the Crimean War, contributing +to naval warfare by his inventions. An older son, Ludwig, remained in +Russia when his family returned to Sweden. This son gained repute as +an engineer and discovered the petroleum springs at Baku.[1] A second +explosion in one of the factories of Sweden, in 1864, caused the death +of a younger son of Emanuel Nobel and shocked the father so severely +that he was an invalid physically for the rest of his life. + +Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born at Stockholm in 1833. He was less +robust than his brothers; he was sensitive and nervous, suffering from +headaches all his life. His mother, Karoline Henriette Ahlssell, was +his devoted comrade from the early days when he would lie on the couch +while she read to him or told him sagas and hero-stories. She was wise +and happy by nature, confident that Alfred would become “a great man,” +in spite of poor physique and moods of depression. He never married, +although he loved a young girl who died in her youth, but he was +devoted to his mother to the end of her life. Letters and frequent +visits to her in Sweden, in his later life, kept alive his affectionate +nature and his idealism. + +Like his father he showed studious interest in chemistry, physics, +and mechanical engineering. Shipbuilding attracted his attention for +a time and, when he was about seventeen, he was sent to the United +States to increase his knowledge of mechanics, as applied to ships, by +association with John Ericsson. At the home of the latter on Franklin +Street, New York, where a tablet has been placed to commemorate the +services of this inventor in the Civil War, young Nobel lived for a +time. His father sent him to John Ericsson in order to investigate an +invention of his, an engine which was supposed to work by heat from +the sun. He stayed several months, probably not more than a year. +Ericsson was passing through a period of fluctuating fortunes. At +the end of 1849 his balance was only $132.32--his total receipts for +the year had been but $2,000. Two years later he recorded a balance +of $8,690.10. In the interval he had sold several patents and had +received congratulations from the King of Sweden upon the great future +for his “test caloric engine.” This was the goal of his experiments +during these years; its success was to be tested in the trial trip of +_The Ericsson_, February 11, 1853. A squall came up as the boat was +launched and making headway, and it sank, carrying with it hopes of +the inventor after years of experiment, and half a million dollars of +invested capital. Ericsson was crushed for a few weeks. How pluckily he +recovered his courage, made his plans for _The Monitor_, offered that +to the United States government and won success for the cause of the +North, is familiar history.[2] + +Upon Alfred Nobel, with his quick, impressionable temperament, this +direct contact with Ericsson must have left strong influences. Perhaps +he decided then that, should fortune favor him, he would leave a fund +to aid scientists in their experiments and to protect them against +financial duress during periods of discouragement. When he returned +to Sweden and Russia, he coöperated with his father and brothers in +manufacturing nitroglycerine and other explosives; he was constantly +seeking for a compound which would be more powerful and less dangerous. +In 1857, at St. Petersburg, he had taken out a patent for a gasometer. +It has been said that the discovery of what was later known as dynamite +came by accident to Alfred Nobel, during an experiment about 1865-66. +Some nitroglycerine had escaped into the siliceous sand of the packing +and this brought about a partial solution of his problem. Dynamite, +which was composed of 75 per cent nitroglycerine and 25 per cent +kieselguhr, or infusorial earth, was produced. He applied for patents +in several countries, and sought for funds to start factories which he +believed would make a fortune by manufacture of this new explosive. It +was sometimes called “Nobel’s blasting-oil.” He told French bankers +that he had invented “an oil that would blow up the world”; a facetious +commentator declared, “French bankers thought it for their interest to +leave the globe undisturbed” and refused him credit.[3] + +Napoleon III became interested and arranged for funds for Nobel’s +factories in France. With some samples of dynamite in his hand bag, +Alfred Nobel came to the United States on the same commercial mission. +New York hotels received him with suspicion because of rumors about +the “deadly explosive”; he went to California where, through the aid +of Dr. Bandman, a friend of Nobel’s brother, a factory was started +near Los Angeles. In a few years manufactories were in operation in +Italy, Spain, France and Scotland, as well as England and Sweden. +When Alfred Nobel was forty years old he was making his fortune out +of this “giant powder.” For several years he lived in Paris where he +had laboratories for further experiments with gelatin, balastite, and +forms of smokeless powder. In his later home, in San Remo, he carried +on developments and took out more patents in petroleum and artificial +gutta-percha. He received the tribute of scientists and educators but +the ignorant people regarded him with a mixture of awe and fear--“he +had put the long hammer of Thor to work again among the giants.” + +In spite of his inspiring life-work and many successes, in spite of +his wealth and honors, Alfred Nobel was a lonely man. His health +was unstable; he often worked with bandaged head and in intense +pain, accentuated by the gaseous fumes of his laboratory. He was +self-distrustful and fearful that people were attracted to him _only_ +by his wealth. One of the few individuals who gained and kept his +confidence was Baroness Bertha von Suttner. In her _Memoirs_ the +personality of Alfred Nobel is revealed in comments and letters. She +came to him in response to an advertisement in a Paris newspaper, +asking for a secretary for “a very wealthy, cultured gentleman.” +She remained only a few days in her joint capacity of secretary and +housekeeper, for a happy solution of her interrupted romance with the +Baron von Suttner eventuated in her speedy marriage. She exchanged +letters and visits with Alfred Nobel for many years and was devoted +to him in life and in memory. She describes him as somewhat below +average height, without physical attractiveness but in no sense +“repulsive,” as he imagined himself to be. He was a fine linguist, +somewhat of a philosopher, a good conversationalist and entertaining +as a story-teller. He allowed her to read a long philosophical poem +which he had written in English and she found it “simply splendid.” +He was critical of the shallow, false-hearted people, especially +those who importuned him with low motives; but he had faith in a +better development of humanity as education progressed. One of his few +intellectual companions in Paris was Madame Juliette Adams, author and +editor of the _Nouvelle Revue_; at her salon in Rue Juliet, Nobel would +meet, occasionally, men of science and letters. + +In the _Memoirs_ of Baroness von Suttner may be located the first +intimations of Nobel’s motives which led to the Nobel prizes, +especially the specific form which was known as “the Peace Prize.” It +will be recalled that the Baroness von Suttner was one of the early +winners of this prize by her widely-read romance, _Die Waffen nieder_ +(_Lay Down Your Arms!_). In 1890, after the publication of this story, +advocating world peace, Nobel wrote letters of high commendation. On +another occasion he said to her, “I wish I could produce a substance or +a machine of such frightful efficacy for wholesale devastation that +wars should thereby become altogether impossible.”[4] He contended, +with the mind of a prophet, that a day might come when “two army corps +may mutually annihilate each other in a second”; then he believed +that “all civilized nations will recoil and disband their troops.” On +January 7, 1893, three years before his death, he wrote to the Baroness +from Paris.[5] “I should like to dispose of a part of my fortune by +founding a prize to be granted every five years--say six times, for +if in thirty years they have not succeeded in reforming the present +system they will infallibly relapse into barbarism.... If the Triple +Alliance, instead of comprising only three states, should enlist all +states, the peace of the centuries would be assured.” Affirming his +belief in “reasonable Socialism,” he deplored the custom of leaving +large fortunes to heirs; too often the results were lapses in mental +ambitions and industry. + +On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel died suddenly in his workshop at +San Remo. For a long time he had realized his condition of reduced +vitality. He consulted doctors unwillingly and heeded their counsel +with reluctance. He kept a record of his own pulse and heart action +but he never desisted from a full day’s work in his laboratory. His +last letters have a sad note that is sometimes sarcastic yet he +kept faith in and with humanity to the last. He had been carefully +considering the disposal of his fortune, determined that it should +contribute to progress in science and literature, for the welfare of +mankind and the education towards world peace. His will startled the +civilized world by its originality and idealism. The man who had been +most successful in inventing elements of destruction, by a paradox, had +left most of his large fortune to constructive, creative purposes. + +Because he distrusted many lawyers he had been his own legal adviser +in large measure; sometimes he had acted as his own secretary, lest an +outsider might abuse his confidence. In appointing M. Ragnar Sohlmann +as executor, he explained that here “was a man who had never asked +anything of me.” (Later the manager of the factory at Bergen became +associate executor.) He left legacies of five thousand pounds each +to his nephews but some efforts to “break the will” were threatened. +Emanuel, then head of the family, refused to sanction such interference +and, after many complications and delays, the will was allowed, and +varied equivocal, or impractical, conditions were interpreted by “Code +of Statutes,” issued by the King of Sweden, June 29, 1900. + +From this pamphlet is quoted here the extract from the will:[6] +“Extract from the Will and Testament of Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel, +Engineer, which was drawn on the 27th day of November, 1895: ‘With +the residue of my convertible estate I hereby direct my executors to +proceed as follows: They shall convert my said residue of property into +money, which they shall then invest in safe securities; the capital +thus secured shall constitute a fund, the interest accruing from +which shall be annually awarded in prizes to those persons who shall +have contributed most materially to benefit mankind during the year +immediately preceding. The said interest shall be divided into five +equal amounts, to be apportioned as follows: one share to the person +who shall have made the most important discovery or invention in the +domain of Physics; one share to the person who shall have made the most +important chemical discovery or improvement; one share to the person +who shall have made the most important discovery in the domain of +Physiology or Medicine; one share to the person who shall have produced +in the field of Literature the most distinguished work of an idealistic +tendency; and finally, one share to the person who shall have most +or best promoted the Fraternity of Nations and the Abolishment or +Diminution of Standing Armies and the Formation and Increase of Peace +Congresses.’” + +In further details the will provides: “The prizes for Physics and +Chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Science in +Stockholm; the one for Physiology or Medicine by the Caroline Medical +Institute in Stockholm; the one for Literature by the Academy in +Stockholm (_i.e._ Svenska Akademien) and that for Peace by a Committee +of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storthing. I declare +it to be my express desire that in the awarding of prizes, no +consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of the candidates, +that is to say, that the most deserving be awarded the prize, whether +of Scandinavian origin or not.” + +Because of difficulties in interpreting certain sections and +elucidating other phrases, this Code of Statutes was drawn up “in +consultation with a representative, nominated by Robert Nobel’s family, +and submitted to consideration of the King.” After adjustments of +interests had been “amicably entered into” by the testator’s heirs, +June 5, 1898, it was decreed that “The instructions of the will above +as set forth shall serve as a criterion for the administration of the +Foundation (Nobel) in conjunction with the elucidations and further +stipulations contained in this Code.” One “stipulation” was that “each +of the annual prizes founded by the said will shall be awarded at least +once during each ensuing five-year period after the year in which the +Nobel Foundation comes into force.” The phrase used by Nobel in the +words relating to the prize in Literature, “the Academy at Stockholm,” +was interpreted “as understood to be the Swedish Academy--Svenska +Akademien.” Another significant explanation was--the “term, +‘Literature,’ used in the will shall be understood to embrace not only +works falling under the category of Polite Literature, but also other +writings which may claim to possess literary value by reason of their +form or their mode of exposition.” This last provision, which seems +elastic and somewhat vague, has not led thus far to undue difficulties +and criticisms. + +The phrase “during the preceding year,” as applied to scientific and +literary achievements alike, was a strange, impractical provision which +was well interpreted broadly in the Code thus: “only such works or +inventions shall be eligible as have appeared ‘during the preceding +year’ is to be understood, that a work or invention for which a reward +under the terms of the will is contemplated, shall set forth the _most +modern results_ of work being done in that of the departments as +defined in the will to which it belongs; works or inventions of older +standing to be taken into consideration only in case their importance +has not previously been demonstrated.” + +Two other stipulations were made that have been applied to the awards +in literature, as elsewhere, “The amount allotted to one prize may be +divided equally between two works submitted, should each of such works +be deemed to merit a prize.” Thus, in 1904, the prize was divided +between José Echegaray, the Spanish dramatist, and Frédéric Mistral, +the poet of Provence; again, in 1917, it was divided between two Danish +writers, Gjellerup and Pontoppidan. On the other hand, if all of the +“works under examination fail to attain to the standard of excellence” +required, no award need be given that year, the “amount added to the +main fund or may be set aside to form a special fund for that of one of +the sections to promote the object of the testator.” In 1914 and 1918 +there were no awards in literature. + +To facilitate impartial judgment it was directed that each of the +four sections of the Swedish corporation of award “shall appoint a +committee--their Nobel Committee--of three or five members to make +suggestions with reference to the award.” To be a member of this +Nobel Committee one need not be “a Swedish subject or member of the +Corporation.” “How are these candidates for prizes nominated?” is a +frequent question. It is stated explicitly in this Code of Statutes, +section 7: “It is essential that every candidate for a prize under +the terms of the will, be proposed as such in writing by some duly +qualified person. A direct application for a prize will not be taken +into consideration.” Further explanations are given of “qualifications +entitling a person to propose another for the receipt of a prize”--he +must be “a representative, whether Swedish or otherwise, of the domain +of Science, Literature, etc. in question and the grounds for the award +must be stated in writing.” In this same Code of Statutes, in a later +section (p. 23) there is expanded information regarding “The right to +nominate a candidate for the prize-competition”--this shall “belong to +Members of the Swedish Academy and the Academies in France and Spain +which are similar to it in constitution and purpose; members also of +the humanistic classes of other Academies and of those humanistic +institutions and societies that are on the same footing as academies, +and teachers of æsthetics, literature and history at universities and +colleges.” For publicity it was provided that these “regulations shall +be publicly announced at least every five years in some official or +widely circulated journals in each of the three Scandinavian countries +and in the chief countries of the civilized world.” The names of +candidates must be presented by February first of each year. + +Although the successful candidates for the various prizes are +usually “broadcasted,” in these days of shrewd journalism, sometime +in November, the official announcements of the awards are made on +“Founder’s Day,” the tenth of December, the anniversary of the death +of the testator. “At this time the adjudicators shall make known the +result of their award and shall hand over to the winners of the prizes +a cheque for the amount of the same, together with a diploma and a +medal in gold, bearing the testator’s effigy and a suitable legend.” +The last word may be more freely translated, _inscription_. In further +explanation the Code of Statutes decrees: “It shall be incumbent on +a prize winner, whenever feasible, to give a lecture on the subject +treated of in the work to which the prize has been awarded, such +lecture to take place within six months of the Founder’s Day at which +the prize was won, and to be given at Stockholm or, in the case of the +Peace prize, at Christiania.” This feature of the award has not often +been “feasible” in literature, although a few of the winners have +received the prizes in person at Stockholm and made fitting responses, +as we shall note in later chapters. The decree is final:[7] “Against +the decision of the adjudicators in making their award no protest can +be lodged. If differences of opinion have occurred they shall not +appear in the minutes of the proceedings, nor in any other way be made +public.” To assist in their investigations and to further the “aims +of the Foundation, the adjudicators shall possess powers to establish +scientific institutes and other organizations. The institutes so +established and belonging to the Foundation, shall be known under the +name of Nobel Institutes.” + +While the general administration of the funds and awards rests with +the Nobel Foundation, consisting of five persons (“one of whom, the +President, shall be appointed by the King and the others by the +delegates of the adjudicating corporations”) the specific work of +investigation and judgment rests with the organization cited in the +will. In literature, the “prizes are assigned” by the Swedish Academy, +after careful investigation by its members, and the assistance of the +Nobel Institute and Librarian. A large collection of books, mostly of +modern writings, forms the Library. In all languages, translations, +when necessary, are found here, also reports concerning works of +recent publication. The Swedish Academy was founded by King Gustavus +III in 1786. It has devoted itself to “the arts of elocution and +poetry, to the preservation of purity, force and elevation of diction +in the Swedish language both in scientific works and products of pure +literature.” Annual prizes have been offered, for scores of years, in +elocution and poetry. Eighteen members, all Swedes, comprise this +Academy, of which the King is patron. He appoints the Inspector of the +Nobel Institute of the Swedish Academy but its “immediate management is +by a member of the Academy, chosen by that body.” + +Two conditions of the will of Alfred Nobel have been faithfully +followed--the recipients in all branches have done something (if not +“most”) “to benefit humanity”; in the second place, “no consideration +whatever has been paid to the nationality of the candidates,” in +the way of favoritism. The most reasonable criticism of the awards, +especially in literature, has been a failure to carry out what seems +to have been the assumed, but not expressed, desire of the donor, +namely, to _stimulate_ work as well as to _reward_ past achievements. +Otherwise, why that puzzling phrase about “the year preceding”? Not +wholly without foundation is the comment that too many of the awards +in literature have been “tombstones rather than stepping-stones.” Many +of the earlier recipients were past seventy, with productive faculties +low, before the honor. It is a satisfaction to the public to know that +a worthy writer has had world recognition before he dies, and that +his last days may have many comforts possible through the financial +award of about $40,000--but such conditions do not seem in accord with +the spirit of the Nobel will and the attitude of the donor toward +creative work. The awards have been too often retroactive rather than +stimulating to further writing. Other winners, as will be noted later, +have accomplished vigorous literature, _after_ the award as well as +_before_ the honor. + +During the years from 1901, when the first prizes were given, to 1925, +twelve nationalities have been represented in literature. Germany +and France have had the largest percentages in awards: Spain, Italy, +Poland, Norway, Sweden have had two winners each. Great Britain +(including the awards to Rabindranath Tagore and to Yeats as well as +Kipling) has been thrice honored. Denmark divided the prize one year; +Switzerland came into the lists with her poet, Carl Spitteler. In +science and “promotion of peace,” America has such names on the roster +of honor as A. A. Michelson in physics, T. W. Richards in chemistry, +Dr. Alexis Carrel in medicine, and Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root and +Woodrow Wilson in the “peace prize.” + +What have been the influences of the will of Alfred Nobel and the +awards upon international literature? An unquestioned result has been +to arouse both curiosity and aspiration among writers and readers. No +other prizes, among any peoples, have caused such widespread interest. +The announcement of the Nobel prizes each year has become an event +of outstanding significance. Journals enter into competition, in +recent years, to get the first word over the wires and to publish the +most informing articles upon the winners. Tense interest precedes and +follows the awards. Whatever may be one’s individual opinion about the +justice in every instance, the fact remains that the chosen writer +becomes the center of study and discussion for the current season and +later years. To some critics this method of appreciation is offensive; +sometimes it may seem to be a sensational “thrust into the limelight” +of an insignificant or mediocre writer. In the majority of cases, the +result is like that of a strong telescope which can distinguish the +“fixed stars from the meteors” in the literary horizon. + +The second influence is upon writers of every nationality--an incentive +to produce “a distinguished work of an idealistic tendency,” some book +which will prove of “benefit to humanity.” This term, idealistic, +is difficult to render in all languages. In the French explanation +of the will, it is explicit, “le plus remarquable dans le sens de +l’idéalisme.” It is not easy to justify the prizes in literature, in +several cases, if one emphasizes the usual meaning of “idealistic.” +Occasionally, the award was given for some less recent work, some +hitherto unappreciated note of idealism in an earlier writing. Two +examples, among many, are Björnson’s tales of peasant life, with +interwoven sagas and poetry, _Arne_ and _A Happy Boy_, or Mistral’s +_Mireio_, the pastoral poem of Provence which was written more than +forty years before the prize was given. In these two cases, as will +be noted later, there was appreciation of efforts to rescue a dialect +or language from literary desuetude. Upon both writers and readers, +the influence of the Nobel awards in literature has been to promote +broader interests and sympathies, more earnest study of standards and +aspirations in widely separated races. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Westminster Review_, 156, 642. + +[2] _The Life of John Ericsson_ by William Conant Church, 2 Vols., New +York, 1901. + +[3] Vance Thompson, in _Cosmopolitan_, September, 1906. + +[4] _Memoirs of Bertha von Suttner; Records of an Eventful Life_, Vol. +I, p. 210, New York, 1910. By permission of Ginn & Co. + +[5] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 438. + +[6] Nobel Stiftelson, The Nobel Foundation, Code of Statutes given +at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on June 29, 1900 (Stockholm, 1901). +Objects of the Foundation. From copy in Library of Congress. + +[7] _Ibid._, section 10. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +POETS OF FRANCE AND PROVENCE + + + The prize of 1901 has been awarded: + + Sully-Prudhomme, René François Armand, member of the French Academy, + born 1839, died September 7, 1907: “as an acknowledgment of his + excellent merit as an author, and especially of the high idealism, + artistic perfection, as well as the unusual combination of qualities + of the heart and genius to which his work bears witness.”[8] + +There has been a steadily cumulative interest in the Nobel prizes, +during the last twenty-five years. Proof is found by comparing journals +of 1901 and 1925, with reference to data and discussion of prize +winners of the respective years. That the will of Alfred Nobel was +an epochal document, in the history of science and literature, was a +slowly recognized truth. What is idealism in literature? What writers +will be candidates with books “of idealistic tendency”? How important +will be the influence of such awards? Such were queries in many minds. +The meaning of idealism is elastic in interpretation, as examples among +the winners will testify. A general principle holds, however, in past +and present standards--the idealistic writer sees _beyond_ nature and +externals; he sees “with the eye of the spirit.” The difference has +been expressed in fitting analogy, by contrast between a photograph +and a portrait of the same individual--if the latter is painted by an +intuitive artist, with vision and insight, as well as artistic technic. + +René François Armand Sully-Prudhomme, the first author to win the +prize in literature, in 1901, received adulatory comments from French +journals and several pages of _personalia_ and criticism in literary +magazines of England, Germany, Scandinavia, and America. For more than +forty years he had been recognized as one of the greatest living poets, +the philosophical poet of the nineteenth century in France, about whose +life and work there was inadequate information in English translations; +the inadequacy is still apparent. The French Academy was happy that +one of its members should have been chosen for this honor, the first +on the list of international candidates. Born in Paris, May 16, 1839, +this French poet evidently belonged to the nineteenth century, in its +middle and later decades, rather than to the twentieth century and its +productive or prophetic writers. + +In the poetry of Sully-Prudhomme are found, almost always, two elements +sometimes in conflict, wistful tenderness and serious, challenging +reflection. This combination of traits may be explained, in part, by +the circumstances of his inheritance and childhood. For ten years his +mother had waited to marry her lover, the father of the poet; four +years after their marriage, he died. Devoted to her son and believing +that he had marked skill in science, she gave him every possible chance +for education; but his home life was lacking in gayety or lighter +interests. At the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, René Sully-Prudhomme +excelled in mathematical sciences and his future seemed assured as a +scholar and teacher. Then an illness affected his eyes so seriously +that he had to abandon concentrated study and he began to write poems +of philosophic trend, questioning the meaning of life yet vibrating +with emotion. + +The first collection of his poems, _Stances et poèmes_, appeared when +he was twenty-six years old. It was received with encomiums from +critics and sold so well that he determined to relinquish the hope +of ever becoming either a scientist or a lawyer and decided that he +would devote his time to poetry. In this collection is found “Le vase +brisé,” one of the most familiar of his poems, with the extended +analogy between the broken vase, the verbena, and the heart; here is +the echoing refrain, + + Il est brisé, n’y touchez pas. + +The next year _Les Epreuves_, translated as _The Test_, was +published, followed by _Les Solitudes_ three years later, and _Les +vrais tendresses_, in 1875. In these poetic meditations he showed the +conflict, ever present in his own nature, between the reason and the +emotions, + + le combat sans vainqueur + Entre la foi sans preuve et la raison sans charme. + +Even more pronounced was this motif of disharmony in the two later +poems, _La Justice_ and _Le Bonheur_. By his countrymen he was hailed +as successor to Victor Hugo and was elected to membership in the French +Academy in 1881. In the long and best known poem by Sully-Prudhomme, +_La Justice_, there are strong traces of the influence of Lucretius, +the classic poet whom he admired and translated with felicitous skill. +A Prologue and an Epilogue and eleven “Vigils” comprise the structure +of this poetic search for the element of _Justice_. There are two +divisions; Part I is entitled “Silence au cœur,” rendered into English +as “Heart, Be Silent!” and Part II, “Appel au cœur.” The chosen medium +of expression is dialogue between two symbolic characters, “The +Seeker,” who analyzes all things with metaphysical exactness, and “A +Voice” which proclaims the “divine aspect in all things.” Justice +cannot be located in the Universe; it may be found in the heart of man, +“which is its inviolable and sacred temple.” + +As _La Justice_ exemplified the search for Justice in Universal Nature, +so _Le Bonheur_, the second long poem published in 1888, was a symbolic +epic, a progress towards supreme Happiness by three routes--curiosity, +sensuousness and science, virtue and sacrifice. The three Parts have +been called, in one translation, “Intoxication,” “Thought,” “The +Supreme Flight” (“Le suprème essor”). There are lines that are strained +in effect, far less convincing and harmonious than the arguments in _La +Justice_; by contrast there are passages of poetic beauty. Faustus and +Stella are the two seekers after Happiness. In a climax--which might +be more dramatic--they “take flight” spiritually from the temptations +and disillusionments of earth to seek, in sacrifice, their fruition of +possible happiness. + +One of the colleagues of Sully-Prudhomme, who has written frankly of +his personality and poetry, is Anatole France. In the biography of the +latter, _Anatole France: the Man and His Work_ by James Lewis May,[9] +among the vignettes written of the group of poet-friends who discussed +life and literature, is a typical sketch of Sully-Prudhomme, at the age +of thirty-six, “mathematical and even geometrical in his sonnets.” He +stressed his intellectuality, as well as his handsome face and wealth. +More illumining, and far more sympathetic, is the analytic study of +Sully-Prudhomme, in the chapter entitled “Three Poets” in Anatole +France’s critiques _On Life and Letters_, first series, translated +by A. W. Evans.[10] Comparing Sully-Prudhomme, François Coppée and +Frédéric Plessis, the critic finds in the first poet, “in his favour, +not only the mysterious gifts of the poet but, in addition, an absolute +sincerity, an inflexible gentleness, a pity without weakness, and a +candour, a simplicity that lift his philosophical scepticism, as it +were on wings, into the lofty regions whither formerly the mystics +were exalted by faith.” As a friend and confidant, he extols this +man of gentle melancholy, sentimental yet reflective, romantic yet +philosophical. + +Edward Dowden, in his essay on “Some French Writers of Verse,”[11] +attributes the seeming unhappiness, or melancholy of Sully-Prudhomme, +reflected in some of his poetry, to the lack of a creed or a loyalty +to which he can give absolute devotion. He calls him “an eclectic” +and finds an analogy in the tale of _Merlin_, the poetical romance +by Edgar Quinet. He stresses the almost feminine sensitiveness of +this poet, a woman’s tenderness which in no way diminishes his manly +vigor. An individual of “harder or narrower personality” would not +have been so disturbed by the conflicts between reason and emotion, by +the deterrents to perfect happiness. Ill health for many years was a +contributory factor, doubtless, to many moods of introspective sadness. +He suffered from partial paralysis in later years. Francis Grierson +in _Parisian Portraits_[12] gives a graphic, intimate picture of this +“typical Academician” with grace of manners and intuitive insight into +people, waging war against his illusions with the part of his mind that +was scientific, and maintaining his poetic vision by his sensitive +emotions. At his home in the rue de Faubourg he always welcomed younger +poets. He seldom went into society, although he was often found at +the salons of Countess Diane de Beausacq, the author of _Maximes de +la vie_. This woman of independent spirit and beautiful hair, who was +dressed in tones of lavender, was an inspiration to the poet. Together +they discussed philosophy and art; Sully-Prudhomme emphasized “the +aristocracy of the mind,” the eternal quality of poetry, music, taste, +and judgment. + +After the Franco-Prussian War, which was a great strain upon the +physical and spiritual endurance of the poet, Sully-Prudhomme wrote +_Impressions_ that awakened political discussion and revealed his +pervasive idealism. _Essays upon the Fine Arts_, _The Art of +Versification_ and _Le testament poétique_ were expressions of his +poetic studies and theories. On the other hand, _Que sais-je?_ which +appeared in 1895 was another index to his scientific inquiries into +natural science, philosophy, and metaphysics. A commentator upon these +queries, well entitled _What Do I Know?_, has said that his last words +might be summarized as “peut-être.” Doubts, yet never bitterness of +despair, characterize his speculative poetry. Four years after he +received the Nobel prize and two years before his death, at the age of +sixty-six, he wrote _La vraie religion selon Pascal_, a last record of +his profound search for spiritual values in life and literature. + +Several of the shorter poems by Sully-Prudhomme, chosen from the five +volumes of his verse, have been translated into English by such poets +as Arthur O’Shaughnessy, E. and R. Prothero, and Dorothy Frances +Guiney. These metrical interpretations are found in anthologies of +French poetry by H. Carrington and Albert Boni. The latter has included +a few of the most representative and musical of Sully-Prudhomme’s poems +in _The Modern Book of French Verse_. A wistful love poem is here +entitled “A Supplication,” translated by I. O. L.:[13] + + Oh! did you know how the tears apace + Fall by a lonely heart, alas! + I think that before my dwelling place + Sometimes you did pass. + + And did you know of the hopes that arise + In wearied soul from a pure young glance, + Maybe to my window you’d lift your eyes + As if by chance.... + + * * * * * + + But if you knew of the love that enwraps + My soul for you, and holds it fast, + Quite simple over my threshold, perhaps, + You’d step at last. + +More typical of this scientist-poet is the verse-picture entitled “The +Appointment,” translated by Arthur O’Shaughnessy.[14] + + ’Tis late; the astronomer in his lonely height, + Exploring all the dark, descries afar + Orbs that like distant isles of splendor are, + And mornings whitening in the infinite. + + Like winnowed grain the worlds go by in flight, + Or swarm in glistening spaces nebular; + He summons one disheveled wandering star,-- + Return ten centuries hence on such a night. + + The star will come. It dare not by one hour + Cheat Science, or falsify her calculation; + Men will have passed, but watchful in the tower + Man shall remain in sleepless contemplation; + And should all men have perished there in turn, + Truth in their place would watch that star’s return. + +Not all of the verses by Sully-Prudhomme are as pictorial as these +selections. There is an unevenness more than usual in his meditative +stanzas. While his popularity waned with the years and new rivals, he +was long the honored bard of France, with name linked with that of +Victor Hugo in his meditative poetry. The Nobel prize stimulated new +interest among world readers; more translations and critical estimates +appeared--and are still being issued. Maurice Baring in a recent book +of criticism, _Punch and Judy and Other Essays_, has written words of +succinct analysis of this French poet: he distinguishes him as “a poet +who thinks and not a thinker who merely uses poetry for recreation.” He +adds, of his simple yet fastidious form, “Other poets have had a more +glowing imagination; his verse is neither exuberant in colour nor rich +in sonorous combinations of sound. The grace of his verse is one of +outline and not of colour; his compositions are distinguished by his +subtle rhythm; his verse is as if carved in ivory, his music is like +that of a unison of stringed instruments.”[15] + + +FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL + +Poet of Provence + + The prize of 1904 has been awarded, one half to: + + Mistral, Frédéric, born 1830, died March 25, 1914: “for reason of + the fresh originality, rich genius, and true artistry in his poetry + that faithfully mirrors the nature and life of the people of his + native country; and also with respect to his significant activity as + Provençal philologist.”[16] + +Three years after the first Nobel prize in literature had been awarded +to Sully-Prudhomme, it came again to a writer who is ranked among +French authors, although he is distinctively of Provence, Frédéric +Mistral. This poet of _Mireio_, a pastoral epic, if one may use the +term, and the preserver of the Provençal language from literary +oblivion, shared the financial award and the honor for 1904 with +Echegaray, the Spanish dramatist, who is discussed in another chapter +of this book. Mistral was seventy-four years old when this recognition +came to him; he lived for ten years longer, wielding influence upon +world literature and receiving reverential homage in his own Provence. +His home in later years was in the same quiet town of Maillane, in the +Bouches-du-Rhône where he was born in 1830. + +His father was a wealthy farmer who had aspirations to make his son +a lawyer. The boy was sent to school at Avignon and, later, took his +degree at Nîmes University and studied at Aix. One of the teachers +at Avignon was Joseph Roumanille who had a large share in restoring +interest in the language. He compiled a fixed orthography of the +Provençal forms and revived racial sentiment in the schools. Like his +pupil, Mistral, he was a firm advocate of classic poetry. Twenty years +before, a famous barber, Jacques Jasmin of Agen, had recited troubadour +songs throughout the villages and had preserved, by voice, many native +legends and folk ballads. It is said that he gave his receipts in money +to charity and that, within a few years, he had gathered $300,000. The +school-teacher formed a society of young men at Avignon, including +“seven poets and dreamers,” among whom were numbered Roumanille, +Mistral, Aubaniel, Mathieu, and Brunet. They pledged allegiance to +Poetry, Love, and Provence. There has been general acceptance of +the statement that Mistral gave to this group of poets the name of +Félibres, originally called “The Seven Félibres” or Scribes of the Law. +They agreed to write in their native language of Provence, to extend +its knowledge and use, so that it might be more than a dialect. They +maintained that it was similar to that of the medieval troubadours, +that it came from the language of Rome and thus was the parent +tongue of Italy, France, and Spain. Although some of these statements +have been seriously questioned by orthographers, the enthusiasm of +these Félibres was acclaimed and literary masterpieces followed; the +celebrations of the Félibres are still noteworthy festivals. + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of The New York Public Library_ + +FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL] + +Another story is that Mistral, who was very fond of his mother, began +to write his verses in French and brought them to her, assured of her +encouragement and praise. Alas! his mother could not read French, +although she was confident that her son was a poet of rare genius. “Let +us sing in the language of our mother!” was the determination of the +youth. He collected legends, folk-tales, and romantic episodes from +every possible source near his home in Provence. In 1858 was published +the first edition of _Mireio_, the pastoral epic which has held its +literary rank, with increasing appreciation, for more than sixty +years. Roumanille was sponsor for this work; the next year a French +translation was made by Mistral and the book amazed Parisians by its +poetic charm. It was dedicated to Lamartine. Mistral was compared, by +enthusiastic critics, to Vergil, Theocritus, and Ariosto. + +Into the twelve Cantos of his poem Mistral wove many local customs and +personal memories. The _mas_, or farmstead, was modeled from his own +home and Ramoun, the wealthy _mas_-dweller, had many traits of his +own father. Familiar to him from boyhood had been the festivals and +daily tasks here portrayed--the wheat-threshing, the snail-gathering, +the fireside meals, the dance of the farandole on the eve of harvest +day. In outline it is a simple, somewhat conventional theme. Mireio, +daughter of a “farmer-prince,” loved the son of a poor basket-weaver; +their romance had days of joy and nights of deep sorrow; the epical +climax of the death of Mireio at the Church of the Holy Maries is +relieved of its grim tragedy by the words of hope on the lips of the +dying heroine. + +There is a gayety of spirit, a zest of life in the opening lines of +Invocation, the poet’s promise to tell the life story of this lovely +girl of fifteen and her innocent, ardent passion: + + I sing the love of a Provençal maid; + How through the wheat-fields of La Crau she strayed + Following the fate that drew her to the sea. + Unknown beyond remote La Crau was she; + And I, who tell the rustic tale of her, + Would fain be Homer’s humble follower. + + What though youth’s aureole was her only crown? + And never gold she wore, nor damask gown? + I’ll build her up a throne out of my song, + And hail her queen in our despis’d tongue. + Mine be the simple speech that ye all know, + Shepherds and farmer-folk of lone La Crau. + +The romantic episodes are told in the cantos, “The Suitors,” “The +Battle,” “The Witch,” “The Saints,” “Death.” Graphic pictures of local +customs and setting are suggested by the subtitles “Lotus Farm,” +“Leaf-Picking,” “The Cocooning,” and “the Camargue” (or salty marshes +of the Rhône). Exquisite songs are interspersed like this in Canto III, +“The Cocooning”: + + If thou the moon wilt be, + Sailing in glory, + I’ll be the halo white + Hovering every night + Around and o’er thee. + + If thou become a flower, + Before thou thinkest, + I’ll be a streamlet clear, + And all the waters bear + That thou, love, drinkest. + +_Mireio_ was made familiar to American readers of the last generation +by the translation of Harriet Waters Preston (Boston, 1872). Several +excerpts from her verse-interpretations of this and Mistral’s later +poems are to be found in _Library of the World’s Best Literature_, +edited by Charles Dudley Warner; an excellent sketch of the poet is +found here. With unique, virile words George Meredith has rendered +into verse some stanzas from Canto X, “The Mares of Camargue”:[17] + + A hundred mares, all white! their manes + Like mace-reed of the marshy plains + Thick-tufted, wavy, free o’ the shears: + And when the fiery squadron rears + Bursting at speed, each mane appears + Even as the white scarf of a fay + Floating upon their necks along the heavens away. + +When the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of _Mireio_ was +celebrated at Arles, Calvé sang the “Song of Magali” and noted French +actors and opera artists rendered Gounod’s _Mireille_, which is based +upon Mistral’s pastoral. The most dramatic canto is the eighth, the +flight of the heroine across the rocky plains of La Crau, finding +shelter at the shrine of the Holy Maries. The maiden’s prayer for help +in her hour of need, for understanding of her love for her “handsome +Vincen,” is wistful and appealing. Two cantos have been devoted to +revival of these old legends of the Holy Maries. Disciples of Jesus, +driven from Palestine after his crucifixion, according to tradition, +were set afloat in a barque by their persecutors. They had neither +sail nor oars. They were washed ashore on the sacred soil where now +stands the village of Les Saintes Maries. Among these disciples were +Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, their servant Sarah (who was +the patron saint of gypsies), Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, and +Trophine, one of the oldest and wisest of the disciples who converted +to Christianity the town of Arles. + +Two long narrative poems followed _Mireio_--_Calendau_ and _Nerto_. +The former, published in 1867, is more potent in dramatic skill than +the earlier pastoral. It has lines of emotional intensity, when the +heroine, a Princess who lost her rank because of love for a humble +suitor, inspires him by her fine spirit and tales of prowess and +chivalry. “The Scaling of Ventour” is a dramatic episode in this poem. +Two stanzas, translated by Harriet Waters Preston, indicate the action +and colorful quality; this is a description of “the catch”:[18] + + Yet had we brave and splendid sport, I ween, + For some with tridents, some with lances keen, + Fell on the prey. And some were skilled to fling + A winged dart held by a slender string. + The wounded wretches, ’neath the wave withdrew, + Trailing red lines along the mirror blue. + + Slowly the net brimful of treasures mounted; + Silver was there, turquoise and gold uncounted, + Rubies and emeralds million-rayed. The men + Flung them thereon like eager children when + They stay their mother’s footsteps to explore + Her apron bursting with its summer store + Of apricots and cherries. + +There is less atmosphere in _Nerto_, an epic tale of the last days of +the Popes at Avignon and “the miraculous burial-place,” + + The Aliscamp of history + Far below Arles. + +The legend of this spot is one of the best portions of _Nerto_: + + out of the heaven came, + Our Lord himself to bless the spot, + And left, if the tale erreth not + The impress of his bended knee, + Rock-graven. Howso this may be, + Full oft a swarm of angels white + Bends hither, on a tranquil night, + Singing celestial harmonies.[19] + +Among the collections of lyrics of love and patriotism by Mistral the +earlier volume in 1875, entitled _Les Isles d’Or_, contained songs in +many moods. Lamartine listened to recital of these and other verses +“in the sweet nervous idiom of Provence, which combines the Latin +pronunciation with the grace of Attica and the serenity of Tuscany.” +He adds, “The verses of Mistral were liquid and melodious, they pleased +without intoxicating me.”[20] The later collection, issued in 1912, +was entitled _Les Olivades_. Mistral thus explained the title: “The +days that grow chill and the swelling seas--all things tell me that +the winter of my life has come, and that I must without delay gather +_my_ olives and offer the virgin-oil on the altar of God.” At this time +the poet was eighty-two years old. He had written an autobiography, +_Mes origines_, with reminiscences of his youth, which was translated +as _Memoirs of Mistral_ by Constance Elisabeth Maud; the lyrics of +Provence were rendered into English here by Alma Strettell (Mrs. +Lawrence Harrison). + +Few writers have had more intensive love of country than Mistral. He +refused the offer of a chair in the French Academy because it would +necessitate leaving Provence; he was given prizes by the Academy and +badges of the Legion. Late in mature years he married a beautiful young +woman of Arlesian family; she has been crowned Queen of the Félibres, +in a yearly festival of contests and songs. Towards the close of the +nineteenth century Mistral began collecting specimens of Provençal +flowers, rocks, and archeological relics for a museum at Arles; he +called this his “last poem.” In a typical _mas_, or farmstead, he +placed these collections and equipment of varied kinds, showing +the customs of the land. He represented, also, certain feasts and +traditions by wax figures. Among others, here is the Arlesian legend +of the feast of Noël and the visit of three women to a mother and her +first-born; one brings a match that the child’s body may be straight, +another brings an egg, that his life may be full, and a third brings +salt, symbol of wisdom.[21] A large part of the Nobel prize money was +used by Mistral for the housing and equipment of this Museum. + +Alphonse Daudet, like Mistral, is a native of Provence. The natives +admire the literary grace and wit of the former, “even if he may laugh +at us occasionally,” they say, but they _love_ Mistral. For ten years +the latter worked upon his _Comprehensive Lexicon of Ancient and Modern +Provençal_, which was published in two large volumes in 1886. He was +honored by the educated classes and loved by the peasantry, landowners, +and boatmen of the Rhône. In 1897 he incorporated into his narrative +in verse, _Le poème du Rhône_, many customs and songs of the days +before steamships had increased the speed of travel and reduced its +picturesqueness. In twelve cantos he celebrated this famous river and +its border towns. A dramatic scene recalled the flight of Napoleon +across the border from Russia. As poetic art this poem is inferior +to _Mireio_ or _Calendau_; it lacks spontaneity yet it has musical +measures. + +Poet of the soil was Mistral, akin in his simplicity and loyalty to +Burns and Whittier, although more of a scholar and technician than +either of these writers of verse. Like them, however, he created anew +the life of his rural people; he touched daily incidents with poetic +beauty. He received many distinguished visitors from every country in +his later years and treasured letters from scholars of every land. +Among the latter was a letter from Theodore Roosevelt written when he +was President and had received a copy of a new edition of _Mireio_; +to the poet he acknowledged his indebtedness of many years for the +delights that he had found in this wistful love poem of Provence, which +mirrored so perfectly the traditions and life of the people. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1901. + +[9] London and New York, 1924. + +[10] London and New York, 1922, pp. 133-144. By permission of Dodd, +Mead & Co. + +[11] _Studies in Literature_, London, 1892. + +[12] London, 1913, pp. 66-81. + +[13] _The Modern Book of French Verse_, edited by Albert Boni, New +York, 1920. By permission of Boni & Liveright. + +[14] _Ibid._ + +[15] _Punch and Judy and Other Essays_ by Maurice Baring, New York, +1924, pp. 216-219. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. + +[16] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1904. + +[17] _Poems_ by George Meredith, New York, 1897, 1898. By permission of +Charles Scribner’s Sons, and the heirs of George Meredith. + +[18] By permission of the Atlantic Monthly Co. + +[19] Translated by Harriet Waters Preston. By permission of Atlantic +Monthly Co. + +[20] _Cours familier de littérature._ + +[21] “Frédéric Mistral: Poet of the Soil” by Vernon Loggins, _Sewanee +Review_, March, 1924. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TWO GERMAN SCHOLARS: THEODOR MOMMSEN--RUDOLF EUCKEN + + + The prize of 1902 has been awarded: + + Mommsen, Theodor, Professor of History at the University of Berlin, + born 1817, died November 1, 1903: “the greatest living master of the + age in the art of representing history, taking into especial regard + his monumental work, _Römische Geschichte_.”[22] + +France was the first country to be honored by the Nobel prize in +literature; Germany was the second. In 1902, Theodor Mommsen, whose +records of scholarship included history, law and archeology, was +the chosen candidate. He was eighty-four years old and lived for +only a year after the award. While there was gratification among his +countrymen and friends in other lands, at his recognition and this high +honor, yet there were adverse comments in several journals about the +perversion of the intent of Nobel’s will. The recipient had finished +his work; the award could never quicken him to further research or +expression of idealism. This choice showed the intention of the +Swedish Academy to consider “literature” in a broad sense, including +contributions of scientific value as well as those of artistic merit. + +Garding, in Schleswig, was the birthplace of Mommsen; his school days +were spent at Kiel. Before he was thirty years old he had been employed +by the Berlin Academy to decipher and examine Roman inscriptions in +Italy and France, because of marked accuracy and zest in research. He +combined the reading of law with that of history and, in 1848, was +called to the department of law at Leipzig University. Always fearless +in political convictions and ardent in Liberalism, he was obliged +to retire from this University because of active participation in +the political issues of 1848-1849. Two years later he was called to +professorship of Roman law at Zürich; after service here for two years +he accepted a similar position at Breslau. In all these places he +was recognized as magnetic in the classroom and inspirational in his +contact with University students from all parts of the civilized world. +In 1858, he went to the University of Berlin as Professor of Ancient +History and there extended his influence among scholars and lay readers. + +Although specific in his interests and a student of deep earnestness, +he had read and traveled widely; as conversationalist he excelled, +informed upon topics in almost every branch of learning and activity. +To him has been attributed the oft quoted sentence, “Each student must +choose his special field of labour but he must not imprison himself +within its confines.”[23] He was called “the modern Erasmus” because +of his versatile knowledge. He wrote with facility and grace, as well +as vigor, whether his theme was a monumental _History of Rome_, or +a journalistic discussion of current affairs. In political creed he +belonged to the National Liberal Party. He was, however, never partisan +in his ultimate purposes and hopes for future union of factions. He +opposed Bismarck in his tenets and sometimes won over him in courts of +law and in the Prussian House of Delegates, by his keen, logical mind. +At the same time, he admired the Chancellor very much and said, “What a +calamity it is for us all that political animosity should deprive us of +the privilege of mixing socially with such a man!” On principle, he was +opposed to British attitude towards the Boers, and gave his allegiance +to the revolutionists. Again, he deplored the strained relations at +times between his country and England and asserted, “What a pity that +two great nations of kindred race should remain at loggerheads!”[24] He +detested slavery and considered the Civil War in the United States “a +holy crusade.”[25] + +More than one hundred volumes of original writing and translations +from the Latin and Germanic languages are listed under Mommsen’s name +in large German libraries. Edward A. Freeman, a critic and historian +of international repute, has called Mommsen “the greatest scholar +of our times, well-nigh the greatest scholar of all times.” His +writings show mastery of law, languages, customs, archeology, coins, +inscriptions and monuments, that are of inestimable value to students. +He was editor of _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_ which was issued +by the Berlin Academy of which he was secretary for many years. To +the average reader, however, the name of Theodor Mommsen will always +be associated with his _History of Rome_, written 1854-1856, which +still maintains its authenticity and popularity. As a writer, Mommsen +was always illumining, with a vivid style; he was often dramatic. He +touched descriptive scenes with grace and color but he was convincingly +realistic in his portrayal of events and characters. He unfolded a +large canvas but he kept a true focus and threw a strong light upon +both individuals and group-pictures, from the early days of Rome to the +death of Julius Cæsar. + +Although his masterwork was entitled _History of Rome_, he explained, +in the Introductory Chapter, that he intended “to relate the history +of Italy, not simply the record of the city of Rome.” While the Romans +represented the most powerful branch of the Italian stock, yet they +were only a branch--but this civic community of Rome gained sovereignty +over Italy and the world of its day. Like the historian Freeman, +Mommsen insisted upon “the unity of history,” the similarity of human +nature from 1800 B. C. to modern times. Few writers have surpassed him +in revivifying historical characters. He had strong likes and dislikes, +prejudices which he could impress upon the reader, although he was +generally justified in his statements and balanced in his estimates. +The portrait of Cicero, which “was bitten with vitriolic energy,” as +Mr. Buchan has said, in _Some Eighteenth Century Byways and Other +Essays_, has been most widely quoted; it is less impartial than his +characterizations of Hannibal, Sully, and Cæsar. By temperament and +political bias, Mommsen was an admirer of Julius Cæsar; he has given to +him a living portraiture. + +The pictorial Chapter IV in Book III, descriptive of Hannibal’s Passage +of the Alps, is a world-famous extract from this _History of Rome_. +In the same chapter is the analysis of Hannibal’s character, so often +quoted: “He was primarily marked by that inventive craftiness, which +forms one of the leading traits of the Phœnician character; he was +fond of taking singular and unexpected routes: ambushes and stratagems +of all sorts were familiar to him; he studied the character of his +antagonists with unprecedented care.... The power which he wielded +over men is shown by his incomparable control over an army of various +natives and many tongues.... He was a great man; wherever he went, he +riveted the eyes of all.”[26] + +There is history of dramatic incident, written with pictorial skill, +in such passages as the Battle of Cannæ, the story of the Gracchi, and +the Crossing of the Rubicon. The breadth of Mommsen’s interests are +suggested by such later chapters as those on Roman Religion, Manners, +and Literature and Art. While he was deeply interested in the past, +and informed about its aspects and personalities, he was alert in all +movements of the present and their trends. He looked to the future +with prevision and optimism. In the Introductory Chapter to his famous +_History of Rome_ he contrasts modern history with past cycles of +culture which will be repeated and adds: “And yet this goal will only +be temporary: the grandest system of civilization has its orbit, and +may complete its course; but not so the human race, to which, just +when it seems to have reached its goal, the old task is ever set anew, +with a wider range and with a deeper meaning.”[27] In spirit, Mommsen +was entitled to rank as an idealist, a worker “to benefit mankind.” +In literary achievements he richly deserved the Nobel prize; his +researches had enriched human knowledge beyond those of other scholars; +his writings appealed to the reader of ordinary mentality as well as +to the more intellectual; his vision and faith in human progress were +undimmed. + + +RUDOLF EUCKEN + +German Philosopher + + The prize of 1908 has been awarded: + + Eucken, Rudolf, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jena, + born 1846: “because of the sincerity of his search for truth, the + penetrating power of thought, the clarity of vision, the warmth and + force of interpretation with which he has, in his numerous works, + cultivated and developed an ideal world philosophy.”[28] + +In 1908, six years after the Nobel prize came to Mommsen, it was again +awarded to a German scholar, Rudolf Eucken. By translation and lectures +in countries other than his own, this recipient was no stranger to +readers of current literature. Born in 1846, in Aurich, East Friesland, +Eucken was younger than the majority of the earlier winners; he +accomplished much writing and lecturing after the honor had been given. +His mature life was devoted to a struggle against the materialistic +philosophy of his day. He was a worthy winner of a prize for “the most +distinguished work of an idealistic tendency” in his country. His +incessant purpose was expressed in his autobiography: “My reminiscences +tell about all of the struggle to prevent the externalization of life. +This externalization is not, it is true, the defect or fault of one +particular nation; it is found in every nation and a radical change is +needed in each.... Every man who shares the conviction that a spiritual +reformation is needed will follow with a kindly sympathy the modest +efforts which are recorded in my reminiscences.”[29] + +His native province, East Friesland, is an agricultural and trading +region in Germany, near Holland, with occasional fisheries as industry. +His birth town, Aurich, is the commercial and social center. The boy’s +childhood was somewhat sad; he was the first child born to his parents +after ten years of marriage, and his father died when the lad was five +years old. He had a series of misfortunes in his infancy and youth: his +throat was badly torn in the effort to extricate a curtain-fastener +which he nearly swallowed as a baby; he had scarlet fever and wrong +treatment, so that he was threatened with blindness for a time but +recovered; a younger brother’s death added to the family gloom. + +Rudolf Eucken inherited studious inclinations. His father, spending +his days in the postal service, was a fine mathematician. His mother +(daughter of a clergyman who was a leader of Radicalism) was well-read +in science and ambitious for her son; the latter records that she +was, also, a practical housewife. After the father’s death their +finances were low and the mother took lodgers to add to her income. +She was determined that Rudolf should be well educated, that he should +become a philosopher or scientist. He recalls his debt to her in +his reminiscences. At the gymnasium at Aurich he showed interest in +mathematics and in music. A strong influence of those plastic days +was his teacher, Reuter, who was forced to retire by the bureaucracy +because of his liberalism. Other professors who left traces upon his +development were Letze and Teichmüller. For a time he was at the +University of Berlin. After experimental teaching he was called to +Basel as professor of philosophy. His mother went with him but their +plans for happy years together were shattered by her death. + +Basel was at this time a small University with about one hundred +and fifty students; Eucken came into close contact with these in +the classroom and outside activities. Already he had begun to write +studies upon philosophers of classic days, Aristotle and others. In +1873 he accepted a call to Jena University where he was brought into +comradeship with such brilliant associates as Kuno Fischer, Haeckel and +Hildebrand. The issue, in 1878, of Eucken’s book, _Fundamental Ideas of +the Present Day_ (or _The Fundamental Concepts of Modern Philosophic +Thought_) aroused sudden interest among scholars of every country in +this daring, idealistic philosopher of Jena University. The basic idea +was to emphasize the harmonious relations of history and criticism. At +the request of President Noah Porter of Yale University, a translation +of this book into English was made by Professor M. Stuart Phelps; thus +American readers became acquainted with this German scholar who was to +enter later into friendly contact with academic organizations here. + +By his marriage, in 1882, to Irene Passow, Eucken increased his +prestige among intellectual and social leaders. He says that his wife +“was not one of the learned women,” but that she had intellectual +interests, gifts in art, and fine administrative ability. Her +mother was the daughter of the noted archeologist, Ulrich, born in +Athens; thus Eucken’s circle of friends widened among scientists and +historians. He continued to write books with cumulative power, like +_The Life of the Spirit_, _Contributions to the History of Modern +Philosophy_, _The Problem of Human Life as Viewed by the Great +Thinkers_, _Life’s Basis and Life’s Ideals_, _Christianity and the +New Idealism_.[30] Many of his own countrymen, who were materialistic +philosophers or monistic evolutionists, criticized Eucken severely; +he declared the German press “ignored him.” He popularized religious +philosophy, especially under such titles as _The Truth of Religion_, +and _Can We Still Be Christians?_ He was invited to deliver lectures in +Holland, France, England, and America. + +Some of these later books followed the award of the Nobel prize +in 1908. He was called “the winning dark horse of that year”; he +said that the honor came as “a great surprise” to him. As further +recognition he was made a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. +The comments in the German press were noticeably restrained beside +the enthusiastic tributes in France, Holland, and England. In 1911 he +went to England and, later, to America as academic lecturer; he was +“exchange professor” and gave lectures at Harvard University, Columbia +University, the Lowell Institute at Boston, and Smith College. His wife +and daughter came with him to America and were guests in the homes +of Professors Moore and Münsterburg at Cambridge. The reader of his +Reminiscences will smile at some of the comments upon Americans and his +reception here. In Germany, with the arrival of “an exchange professor” +and his first lecture, there is a demonstration of welcome, with formal +program and the presence of notables in statescraft as well as letters. +He found no such condition at Harvard University. He presented himself +to President Lowell and was told, “You may begin at once.”[31] By +contrast he says, with naïveté, President Butler of Columbia University +gave a banquet in honor of Eucken and Bergson, who were lecturing in +New York at the same time. + +Among Americans whom the German scholar met with friendly contact were +Andrew Carnegie and Roosevelt. He says of the latter, “With Roosevelt I +had a very spirited conversation on American idealism and its future, +in which he gave proof of considerable historical knowledge.”[32] He +found Americans, as a class, alert but not well informed on European +affairs, especially German history. After he returned from America, +he planned a trip to Japan and China, hoping to carry into the Orient +his principles of idealistic philosophy; he sought coöperation of +all nations in “solving problems of life.” The war interfered with +this project and caused him deep depression. He tried in every way to +appeal to the less materialistic traits of his people. In 1915, he +wrote _The Bearers of German Idealism_, a book which sold copies by the +tens of thousands and supplemented, in a way, his earlier volume, _The +Historical Significance of the German People_. He found the war “the +saddest moment in German history”; he felt the nations were disloyal to +themselves and sentiments of honor. His daughter, a musician of rare +gifts, lost her lover during the war. In his sons, one a physician +and another a political economist, Eucken saw examples of many of his +idealistic influences. + +The writings of Eucken, especially those of religious trend, have been +popular in America, as well as England. Several of his essays have been +collected and translated by Meyrick Booth. _In the Harper’s Library +of Living Thought_ is the translation by Lucy Judge Gibson and W. R. +Boyce Gibson of his _Christianity and the New Idealism_ (1909 and +1912). _The Meaning and Value of Life_ had one of the same translators; +Joseph McCabe, who translated the autobiography, has rendered, also, +_Socialism: an Analysis_ (1922). Among other books in constant demand +at libraries are _Religion and Life_, the lectures which he gave in +London, Oxford, and elsewhere, 1911, and _Ethics and Modern Thought: a +Theory of their Relations_, which were the Deems lectures, delivered +in 1913 at New York University. These are translated by Margaret von +Seydewitz from the German manuscript. _Can We Still Be Christians?_ +with its challenging title (1914) is a careful, tolerant study of +historic Christianity, an advocacy of a religion which will adapt +itself to the demands of daily life. Spirituality and morality must +combine to form a high level of progress and the Church must become “a +repository of the facts and tasks of life itself.” + +Comparisons have often been made between Eucken and two other modern +thinkers and writers on philosophy of kindred motive--Adolf Harnack +and Henri Bergson. The former, who has been professor at Leipzig and +Berlin, author of such stirring books as _What Is Christianity?_ and +_History of Dogma_, has the German background while Bergson, in his +_Creative Philosophy_ has written an epoch-making book with dissimilar +but potent deductions. The two men, Eucken and Bergson, have been +discussed in a discriminating essay by E. Hermann who thus summarizes +the message of the Nobel prize winner in philosophy: “Eucken stands +before us today as perhaps the greatest thinker of our age and the +protagonist of a new idealism which satisfies our demands for moral +reality as no idealistic philosophy has ever done, and as the teacher +who has most fully and boldly developed the religious implications +of ethical idealism. His philosophy of life is an insistence upon +the supremacy of the spiritual. His defence of freedom is a doctrine +of spiritual liberty rooted in the saving initiative of God and +our dependence on Him. His vindication of our personality is the +rescue of the free, God-centered personality from the thralldom of a +self-centered individuality.”[33] + +Especially interesting is the Nobel Lecture, delivered at Stockholm, +March 27, 1909, by Eucken, translated by Alban G. Widgery, Cambridge, +1912 (W. Heffer and Sons). As an introductory thought, Eucken +emphasizes that we are living in an age when tradition has become a +subject of doubt and new ideas are struggling to guide our lives. +The two terms, “_Naturalism or Idealism_,” which form the title of +this Nobel address, have become confused in meaning and have caused +misunderstandings. To Eucken, Naturalism means “faith in man’s +relation to Nature”; Idealism accepts this faith but asks if this is +the whole of life or if there is not another kind of life, also. He +pleads for domination of “The True, the Good and the Beautiful” in +life, not merely utilitarian aspects. Life is not just a reflection of +a given reality but a striving upward; it does not _find_ another world +but “it may _produce_ one.” Idealism which deals with such expansion +of daily life has no new aims to-day beyond that of classic times but +it is emphasized, because “we have been driven beyond the standards +of Naturalism.” The task before literature is coöperation in this +effort to reach a higher level, “to purify and confirm, to make the +fundamental problems of our spiritual existence _impressive_ to us, +to raise life above the mere transient culture, by the realization of +something eternal.” This, as he interprets it, was the idea of Alfred +Nobel in his will and awards; this has been the life purpose of Eucken +as teacher and writer. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1902. + +[23] _Bookman_, 18: 346. + +[24] _Ibid._ 346-348, December, 1903, article on Mommsen. By permission +of the Editor of _The Bookman_. + +[25] _Some Eighteenth Century Byways and Other Essays_ by John Buchan, +Edinburgh and London, 1908, William Blackwood & Sons. + +[26] _History of Rome_ by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William P. +Dickson, New York, 1908, Vol. II, pp. 244, 245. By permission of +Charles Scribner’s Sons. + +[27] By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. + +[28] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1908. + +[29] _Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels_ by himself, translated +by Joseph McCabe, New York, 1922. By permission of Charles Scribner’s +Sons. + +[30] For further titles, see bibliography and list of translators. + +[31] _Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels_ by himself, translated +by Joseph McCabe, New York, 1922, p. 162. By permission of Charles +Scribner’s Sons. + +[32] _Ibid._, p. 167. + +[33] _Eucken and Bergson: Their Significance for Christian Thought_, by +E. Hermann, Boston, 1912, p. 87. By permission of The Pilgrim Press. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +BJÖRNSON: NORWEGIAN NOVELIST AND PLAYWRIGHT + + + The prize of 1903 has been awarded: + + Björnson, Björnstjerne, born 1832, died April 26, 1910: “as a tribute + acknowledging his noble, splendid and varied works of art which have + always been distinguished by freshness of inspiration, and, at the + same time, by unusual purity of soul.”[34] + +One of the five members elected by the Norwegian Storthing, to select +the winners of the prize for the promotion of peace, under terms of +Nobel’s will, was Björnstjerne Björnson. It was a fitting choice for +he was a vigorous advocate of world peace, an ardent worker in all +causes for “the benefit of mankind.” When the award in literature for +1903 was given to him, he was already known as “Norway’s Father.” As +writer of novels and plays, he had been read more widely than almost +any other Scandinavian of his day, at that time surpassing Ibsen in +translated works. As publicist and orator, as manager of theatres and +civic legislator, he exerted national influence. In giving him the +Nobel prize the adjudicators had in memory, especially, his earlier +tales of peasant life which intermingled poetic idealism with sagas +and realistic pictures of Norwegian life. His plays of later years, +_Beyond Human Power_, _The Editor_, and _Sigurd Slembe_, were problem +plays that awakened discussion in many countries; they were more +universal and realistic in tone than the earlier fiction. Björnson had +a remarkable combination of virility and gentleness. He was a Viking +clansman, as he often averred, but he was also a poet, loving the +folk songs and pictorial delights of rugged Norway with deep, ardent +affection. The symbol of his strength, represented twice in the lingual +root of his name--Björn, a bear--was fitting for his large, fearless +mind and spiritual energy. He was a warrior when occasion demanded +resistance to evil; he was a skald when he wrote tales of peasantry. + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation_ + +BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON] + +He was born in 1832 at Kvikne, in the valley of the Dovre Mountains. +He lived seven years after the Nobel prize was given to him, keeping +his mentality alert until almost the end of his seventy-eight years. +His father was pastor in this small place, without beauty of scenery +or fertility of soil. When the boy was six years old the family moved +to a region of marked contrasts, in Romsdale. His memories of this +picturesque scenery and his delights in the valleys, hills, and fjord, +were commemorated in his poem, “Over the Lofty Mountains.” His school +days at Molde were busy and happy; he read with insatiable appetite for +sagas and history, and became devoted to the Swedish poet, Wergeland. +At seventeen he went to Christiania to prepare for the University. +Here he was a schoolmate of Ibsen; with typical humor he wrote--and +treasured--this doggerel of these early days: + + Overstrained and lean, of the colour of gypsum, + Behind a beard, huge and black, was seen Henrik Ibsen. + +The two families cemented their friendship of many years by the +marriage of Björnson’s daughter, Bergliot, a singer of much talent, to +the son of Ibsen. + +At Christiania, Björnson became much interested in Danish literature, +especially drama, and he began his play, _The Newly-married Couple_, +which was not finished until a decade later. He completed, however, a +one-act play, _Between the Battles_, which was staged in Christiania +with only moderate success. For a time he abandoned drama and devoted +himself to the peasant tales, to characters of types familiar to him, +against a background of Norwegian folklore. He was proud to recall +that his forefathers were peasants; he knew the common people and +sympathized with their customs and ambitions. He sought to blend sagas +and scenes from modern life, with mutual interpretation. Those early +stories of simple life, _Arne_, _The Fisher Maiden_, _A Happy Boy_, +and _Synnöve Solbakken_, were well received in Denmark and Germany, as +well as his own country. Soon they were translated into English and +commended for their simplicity, poetry, and national spirit. Sir Edmund +Gosse, writing in the late 1880’s, said of Björnson: “His spirit was as +masculine as a Viking’s and as pure and tender as a maiden’s. Through +these little romances there blows a wind as fragrant and refreshing as +the odour of the Trondhjem balsam willows, blown out to sea to welcome +the newcomer; and just as this rare scent is the first thing that tells +the traveller of Norway, so the purity of Björnson’s _novelettes_ +is usually the first thing to attract a foreigner to Norwegian +literature.”[35] + +Mr. Georg Brandes, in his excellent study of Björnson in _Creative +Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_, affirms that the popularity of +these peasant tales was not so great throughout Norway as one is +inclined to believe from later reports. “People loved the peasant +in the abstract” but they did not know him, nor were they deeply +interested in his welfare or his aspirations. Moreover, the critics +found them sentimental and failed to appreciate the legends and +parables which were often interspersed, like the beautiful symbolism +in the opening paragraphs of _Arne_ with the several trees--juniper, +oak, birch, and heather--seeking to clothe the mountain. In the two +tales, _Synnöve Solbakken_ and _Arne_, Björnson represented two heroes +of Norwegian life; Thorbjörn of the first story was the youth of +physical virility, developed by contact with gentler influences; Arne, +by contrast, was dreamy and poetic, in need of more robust experiences. +There are wistful strains of melody in this story of _Arne_--this +yearning for the ideal. Sir Edmund Gosse has translated one of these +lyrics in rhymed couplets: + + Through the forest the boy wends all day long, + For there he has heard such a wonderful song. + + He carved him a flute of the willow tree, + And tried what the tune within it might be. + + The tune came out of it sad and gay, + But while he listened it passed away. + + He fell asleep, and once more it sung, + And over his forehead it lovingly hung. + + He thought he would catch it and wildly woke, + And the tune in the frail night faded and broke. + + “Oh God, my God, take me up to Thee, + For the tune Thou hast made is consuming me.” + + And the Lord God said, “’Tis a friend divine, + Though never one hour shalt thou hold it thine. + + Yet all other music is poor and thin + By the side of this which thou never shalt win.”[36] + +The character of Arne, the poetic, restless boy who tries to break +away from the rock-ribbed confines of Norway, is an individual and a +national type; his mother, Marit, is one of the most real, appealing +women of Norwegian fiction. In these two peasant tales, and the +lighter, more joyful romance of _A Happy Boy_, is found some of the +best poetry by Björnson. Many of these verses are found in _Poems +and Songs_, translated by Arthur Hubbell Palmer from the Norwegian +in the original meters.[37] “Synnöve’s Song,” “The Day of Sunshine,” +and “Ballad of Tailor Nils,” from _Arne_, are typical examples of his +lyrics. Included in this anthology are patriotic poems. One of these, +entitled “Song of Norway,” from _Synnöve Solbakken_ (1859) is one of +the most familiar of National Songs, beginning, + + Yes, we love this land that towers + Where the ocean foams; + Rugged, stormswept, it embowers + Many thousand homes. + + Love it, love it, of you thinking, + Father, mother dear, + And that night of saga sinking + Dreamful to us here.[38] + +Thirty years later, for the silver wedding anniversary of Herman Anker +and his wife, Björnson wrote another poem of patriotic and idealistic +strains, beginning, + + Land That Shall Be! + Thither, when thwarted our longings, we sail,-- + Sighs to the clouds, that we breathe when we fail, + Form a mirage of rich valley and mead + Over our need,-- + Visions revealing the future until + Faith shall fulfill,-- + The land that shall be![39] + +Ever after a visit to Upsala University and a longer residence in +Copenhagen, Björnson had cravings to write and to direct plays. In the +latter position he served for a time, 1857-1859, at Bergen. His first +plays were of saga heroes and chieftains, like Halvard of _Between +the Battles_ and _Sigurd Slembe_ or _Sigurd the Bad_. They possess +militant virtues and moral integrity but they are driven to misdeeds +and despair by opposition to their good intentions. Thus Sigurd seeks +to make peace with his half-brother, Harold Gille, but is betrayed +into revenge and murder. Mr. Brandes suggests that in these plays the +spiritual sufferings of Björnson--who would elevate and harmonize the +Norwegian people but finds himself misunderstood and rejected in his +idealism--are revealed by analogy. He stresses the difference between +Björnson and Ibsen in this respect and others; the former seeks +comradeship and unity; the latter is “solitary by nature.” Björnson +portrays all aspects of nature; Ibsen seldom uses such descriptions. +With fine distinctions between the two men, in nature and literature, +Mr. Brandes writes: “Henrik Ibsen is a judge, stern as one of the +judges of Israel of old; Björnson is a prophet, the delightful herald +of a better age. In the depths of his nature, Ibsen is a great +revolutionist.... Björnson’s is a conciliatory mind; he wages warfare +without bitterness. His poetry sparkles with the sunshine of April, +while that of Ibsen, with its deep earnestness, seems to lurk in dark +shadows.” Ibsen loved the idea; Björnson loved humanity.[40] + +Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in his study of Björnson, in _Adventures +in Criticism_[41] divides his writings into three periods which he +calls “simplicity, confusion and dire confusion.” The first group of +tales are those of idyllic type, already considered in _Arne_ and _A +Happy Boy_; the second represent a transition towards the realistic +and self-conscious, exampled in _The Fisher Maiden_ and _Magnhild_; +the third, showing more complications of thought and style, are like +_The Heritage of the Kurts_ (originally entitled _Flags Are Flying_) +and _In God’s Way_. The influence of German and French realists may be +traced in these later novels, especially the former with its portrayal +of polygamous conditions. Other critics consider _Magnhild_ an advance +in characterization over any previous fiction by Björnson, especially +in the musician Tande and the relationship between him and Magnhild. If +the author intends to show that a woman may be happy in other ways than +love, he does not “get the message over” until it is interpreted by +Mr. Brandes or other critics. Rationalism mingles with idealism in the +first scenes of _In God’s Way_. + +As the years passed, Björnson traveled on the continent, in England +and to America for a visit in 1881. He sharpened his outlook upon life +but he never lost his “passion for truth,” his hatred of oppression +in any form, his belief that individuals and nations might be joined +by friendship rather than separated by antagonisms. He was deeply +impressed by certain forms of hypocrisy which he witnessed in Norway +and he attacked such abuses in the problem plays, _The King_, _The +Editor_, and _The Bankrupt_. Unlike the traditional patriot who says, +“My country--right or wrong--but my country!” Björnson adopted as his +slogan, “Norway must be right at all cost!” His plays, which revealed +innate evils, made him unpopular with politicians and brought about +threats of violence. He used to tell, with humor, of the visit of +some aggressive opponents among the young men who threw stones at his +windows but went away singing the refrain of his National Song, + + Yes, we love this land that towers, etc. + +As dramatist, Björnson attained a skill which is being recognized by +students of to-day. _The Newly-married Couple_, which was, probably, +the first play to be written in original draft but held for later +publication, has a psychological theme, well constructed--the +adjustment necessary between the love of a maiden for her parents and +the new, strange love for her husband. The characters are vital and +the lines effective. Another early play, _Lame Hulda_ (_Halta Hulda_), +was more emotionally intense; the heroine, lame for twenty-four years, +experiences a brief, tragic passion for a man whose love is pledged +elsewhere. There is lack of those elements of comedy that lighten +the lessons of _The Newly-married Couple_. To the earlier period of +play writing belongs, also, _Maria Stuart in Scotland_, a brilliant +retelling of the familiar romance but lacking dramatic situations at +the close; Björnson was always at his best in Scandinavian background; +nevertheless John Knox is a commanding personality in this play. In +this time of mental conflict between the ideal and the realities in +life as they affected his development, he wrote that vigorous novel, +_The Fisher Maiden_, with vivid characterization, and one of his most +pictorial poems, _The Young Viking_. + +Truth is the demand of the dramatist, in every crisis in life, as +depicted in his problem plays, from _The Bankrupt_ to _A Gauntlet_. +With skill he shows The King, thwarted in his high ideals and his +love, trying to “serve the freedom of the spirit,” to be a true +“citizen-king” but ending his life in despair because of the deceit +of others. _The Bankrupt_ has a strong character in Berent, the +lawyer; the “problem” centers about the merchant’s temptation to use +the money of others. _The Editor_ aroused much controversy, because +it was claimed that Björnson had here satirized a Swedish editor but +the charge was unfounded; rather the editor and his victims, Halvadan +and Harald, typify journalistic conditions in every land. Mr. Brandes +suggests that the dramatist may have been modeling these two brothers +from the older poet, Wergeland and himself, in their struggles to +create love for truth and freedom. In _Leonarda_, with lyrical as well +as dramatic qualities, Björnson spoke a message of more tolerance and +historical significance through three generations of Norwegian society. +Two excellent translators of his plays have been Edwin Björkman and R. +Farquharson Sharp (_see_ bibliography). + +By translation and inclusion in selected plays of merit from many +languages, _Beyond Human Control_ has become one of the most familiar +of Björnson’s social dramas. It is one of the chosen plays in _Chief +Contemporary Dramatists_, Series I, by Thomas H. Dickinson. There +are two parts to this drama, with differing _motifs_--the first in +chronology and most widely read and staged is _Beyond Human Power_ +(or _Beyond Our Power: Over Ævne_ I, 1883) dealing with problems of +religious faith and fanaticism; the second part (_Over Ævne_ II, +1895) treats of differences of opinion between labor and capital. The +first part, a complete play, has been given throughout Europe and +was performed in New York in 1902, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the +leading rôle. The characters are strongly balanced in interest; the +wife of the self-sacrificing, impractical pastor, Clara Sang, is a +masterly delineation of wifely loyalty and maternal responsibility. +The Bishop is well drawn in antithesis to Pastor Sang. _A Gauntlet_ +created discussion in Norway because of its daring theme--the advocacy +of the same standards of social purity for men and women. It is less +effective dramatically but morally it is vigorous. + +Björnson’s later work in drama includes such good reading-plays as +_Laboremus_, _Daglannet_, and _When the New Wine Blooms_.[42] As +examples of literary work after the age of seventy, to which may +be added the story, _Mary_,[43] with emotional power, they stand +as testimonials to the vigor, mental and spiritual, of this worthy +“Viking” of our day. After he received the Nobel prize, in accord with +the proviso of the Code of Statutes, he made a noteworthy address upon +the theme, “Poetry As a Manifestation of the Sense of Vital Surplus.” +His own vitality and zest in life never lapsed. He declared that the +possession of a new pair of trousers in his old age gave him a sense +of delight like that of a child and he would get up an hour earlier +“to get full enjoyment of these clothes.” Edwin Björkman, one of the +most intuitive of his many translators, tells, in his _Voices of +Tomorrow_[44] incidents in the later life of Björnson that verify his +childlike nature, combined with serious, passionate efforts for human +betterment. His wife, an actress by training, was his amanuensis and +critic; between husband and wife existed a rare bond of sympathy: at +formal dinners, and on social occasions of varied kinds, Björnson +insisted that his wife should sit at his right hand, in spite of other +conventions. As writer, speaker, “lay preacher,” and civic adviser, +Björnson has an assured rank among “The Creative Spirits of the +Nineteenth Century.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[34] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1903. + +[35] _Northern Studies_ by Edmund Gosse, Walter Scott, London, 1890. By +permission of Sir Edmund Gosse. + +[36] _Ibid._, p. 32. By permission of Sir Edmund Gosse. + +[37] American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1915. By permission of +translator and publisher. + +[38] This has been adapted to song by Nordraak; another, “Forward,” has +been set to music by Grieg. + +[39] _Poems and Songs_ by Björnstjerne Björnson, translated by Arthur +Hubbell Palmer, from the Norwegian in the original meters, London 1915. +By permission of the American-Scandinavian Foundation. + +[40] _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg Brandes, +translated by Rasmus B. Anderson, New York, 1923, p. 345. By permission +of Thomas Y. Crowell Co. + +[41] London and New York, 1925. New edition. + +[42] Translated by Lee M. Hollander, _Poet Lore_, 1911. + +[43] Translated by Mary Morison, 1910. + +[44] New York, 1913. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI--ITALIAN POET + + + The prize of 1906 has been awarded: + + Carducci, Giosuè, Professor in the History of Literature at the + University of Bologna, born 1835, died February 16, 1907: “in + consideration not only of his wide learning and critical research, + but, in the first place, as homage to the plastic energy, the + freshness of style, and the lyric strength that distinguish his + poetry.”[45] + +In 1906, when he was seventy years old, Giosuè Carducci, the greatest +of living Italian poets of that time, for more than two score years +professor at the University of Bologna, was announced the winner of the +Nobel prize in literature. As in the case of Mistral, the choice had +fallen upon a poet of patriotic influence, although the Italian was +far more independent in spirit, with less sentimental devotion to his +country. At different periods he had been a critic of both the Liberal +and the Monarchial parties; sometimes he had seemed to be vacillating +in his political convictions but he had always been an ardent patriot +for Italy of the past, with hopes for a future of greater freedom and +world influence. + +Carducci was born at Val di Castello, July 27, 1835. His father, of a +Florentine family, was a country doctor who had been imprisoned for +political activities before the son was born. When Giosuè was three +years old, the family moved to Bolgheri, in Tuscan Maremma; here the +boy roamed about the hills and valleys for eleven years; he recalled +some of his childhood memories in “Crossing the Tuscan Maremma.” He was +educated, in the first place, at home; his father taught him Latin and +his mother read to him from the poems of Alfieri. After the turbulent +conditions of 1848 the family moved to Florence and he was sent to the +Scuole Pie; at eighteen, he was writing _Sapphics and Alcaics_, in +which he urged a return to classic meters and early ideals of Italy. +His vein of satire was shown in mild attacks upon the church and +its restrictions upon progress. Schiller, Byron, and Scott were his +favorite authors during a part of this formative period. + +In 1856 he was nominated as Professor of Rhetoric at the Gymnasium +of San Miniato al Tedesco but he became involved in political and +literary controversies. He was refused government sanction to teach in +a position offered at Arezzo, so he returned to Florence. He was poor +and lived in extreme self-denial, frequenting libraries, storing his +mind with Greek and Latin literature and finding some employment with +the publisher, Barbèra, for whom he wrote prefaces, notes, etc., for +Italian classics. Two griefs came within a year--the suicide of his +brother, Dante, and the death of his father. In memory of his brother +he wrote the lines “Alla memoria di D. C.” Happier days came when he +married the gifted daughter of his relative and friend, Menicucci. His +home life was stimulating and sympathetic. He had four children; to a +daughter he gave the symbolic name of “Liberty.” Again death came to +crush his spirit; his little boy, Dante, three years old, died the same +year as Carducci’s mother. The latter, of fine Florentine family, had +been a loved comrade to her son; and although he was reconciled to her +death in old age, he rebelled, in deep grief, at the loss of the little +boy, declaring “three parts of his life” had departed. The elegiac +stanzas, “Funere mersit acerbo,”[46] written in a mood of longing for +the child, are pathetic. + +His poems, as collected previous to 1870, showed political agitation +and frequent bitterness and satire; many of these had appeared in the +periodical, _Il Poloziano_. In 1860 he went to Pistoia as Professor of +Greek and Latin; there he wrote his poem, “Sicilia e la rivoluzione,” +celebrating Garibaldi’s Sicilian Expedition of that time. During the +next ten years he passed through political changes of allegiance; +when his _Hymn to Satan_[47] appeared, and “made him famous in a day,” +(republished in 1869 over signature of “Enotrio Romano”) extolling the +advance of Liberalism over the reactionary influences of both monarchy +and church, he was declared to be an unqualified Republican. It was +a daring _motif_ that the poet chose for his voice of “Revolt”; it +required courage, at that time, to summon as witnesses to the progress +of the “lord of the feast, Satan,” such names as Savonarola and Luther, +Huss and Wycliffe. One reason for the immediate popularity of this poem +may have been the flowing, almost lilting, form of four-line stanzas. + +Seven years before the publication of _Hymn to Satan_, Carducci had +become identified, as professor, with the University of Bologna; here +he remained until his death--a period of forty-six years of educational +service. The first offer from Mamiani, as Minister of Education, was +to the Turin Lycée but the poet was unwilling to leave Tuscany. After +a little delay the chair of elocution--and later of literature--was +open to him at Bologna. His influence upon students of all types was +stimulating, always conducive to individual expression and ambition. +After the appearance of _Hymn to Satan_ he was in marked disfavor with +the government. His liberal ideas were in high favor with the students, +however, so that it seemed wise to “make a change” by offering him +a position to teach Latin at Naples. Carducci refused on the ground +that he was not qualified to teach Latin. He was prohibited from +continuing classroom instruction at Bologna, on the ground of “constant +opposition to the acts of the Government.” Affairs were quieted by a +change of ministers and the poet, wisely, refrained from promulgating +political doctrines in the University, or from giving dominance to +them in his later volumes of poems, like _Levia grandia_, in 1867, +and _Nuove poesie_, in 1873. Mr. Bickersteth has emphasized duly the +more restrained, tender note in the later volume, following soon after +the loss of his mother and his son. So different were the lyrics from +his previous type, so surely did they show the influence of Goethe, +Schiller, and Heine, in romanticism, that some critics accused Carducci +of being a mere imitator, or even a plagiarist. This challenge aroused +his ever-present spirit and he wrote the prose defense, with broad as +well as personal comment, _Critica ed arte_. + +As lecturer, he became yearly more popular and students from distant +places hastened to come under his inspiration. He was one of the +noteworthy exponents of Dante. When Rome established a chair of Dante +Exigesis, Carducci was appointed as professor. Although sorry to lose +him at Bologna, the whole country applauded the honor. He hesitated, +because he was not in accord with those who interpreted Dante by +contemporary political conditions, those who had founded the chair at +Rome. Later he became one of “four leading Dante scholars” who gave +short courses of lectures each year. At his first lecture there was +an effort to make a political demonstration by the anti-Papal party. +Among his sentences at this first discourse he said, “Papacy and +Empire, their discord and their power, were passing away when Dante was +born--Dante who does not pass away.” In an earlier sonnet, published in +essays in 1874, he had interpreted what he believed were Dante’s views +and the reason for his immortal fame:[48] + + Dante, whence comes it that my vows and voice, + Adoring thy proud lineaments I raise; + That, o’er thy verse, which made thee lean and wan, + The sun may set, the new dawn finds me still? + + I hate thy Holy Empire; with my sword + I should have thrust the crown from off the head + Of thy good Frederick in Olona’s vale. + O’er church and Empire, both now ruins sad, + Thy song soars up, and high in heaven resounds-- + Though Jove may die, the poet’s hymn remains. + +With one of those marked changes in his impulses and convictions which +ever characterized Carducci, he broke away from tendencies towards +German Romanticism and declared a “literary revolution” as his purpose +in writing his most familiar odes, _Odi barbare_, 1873-1877. Back to +the poetry of Greece and Rome he would lead the people, away from the +romanticists and “sickly sentimentalism.” To his friends, Chiarini +and Targioni, who were critics of these odes, he declared that the +world’s greatest poets had been Homer, Pindar, Theocritus, Sophocles, +and Aristophanes.[49] There was a great variety of meter in this +collection; several poems that lacked rhymes seemed, to the hackneyed +critics, unconventional in form. Mr. Bickersteth has informing comments +upon Carducci’s _Metres in the Barbarian Odes_ and other poems, in his +Introduction to his _Selection of Poems_, already cited. Among the +examples of the Italian poet at his best, his most simple, flexible, +and musical lines, one recalls from this collection such verses as +“The Ideal,” “The Mother,” and “By the Urn of Percy Bysshe Shelley.” +Addressing one of his imaginary Greek women, Lalage, he unfolds his +own deep, loving appreciation of the English poet in such couplets as +these:[50] + + Vain are the joys of the present, they come and they fade like a + blossom, + Only in death dwells the truth and loveliness but in past days. + + Lo, on the mount of the centuries Clio hath nimbly descended, + And bursts into song as she spreads her magnificent wings to the + sky. + + * * * * * + + O heart of hearts, o’er this urn, thy cold, uncongenial prison, + The warm spring blossoms again with the fragrance of flower and + fruit. + + O heart of hearts, thy divine great father, the Sun, hath arisen, + And lovingly bathes thee in light, poor heart that forever art mute. + +This poem, inspired by the grave of Shelley, is one of the most +beautiful and appealing of the odes; to him the English poet was, in +truth, “Poet of liberty,” with a “spirit Titanic.” In spite of the +simplicity and directness of Carducci’s diction his poems have defied +many translators, especially in English. It is interesting to note that +two of his German translators have been winners of the Nobel prize in +literature, Paul Heyse and Theodor Mommsen. + +In this same volume, _Odi barbare_, was a poem which attracted wide +attention in Italy and aroused some indignation among the former +friends of Carducci who had Republican principles. It was the tribute +entitled “To the Queen,” dated November 20, 1878. While it was +essentially an effusion to the grace, beauty, and literary gifts of +Queen Marguerite as an individual, it resounded with the Hail! (“Long +Live!”) which has come down from Hebrew days for king and queen. +Although a Liberal to the end of his life, Carducci relinquished his +antagonism to monarchy as he grew older and gentler in spirit. The +influence of his friend in political life, Crispi, caused a reaction +in Carducci from alliance with Republicanism, which veered towards +Socialism, and an alignment again with the monarchical party. The final +pledge of this political change was chronicled in the tribute to King +Albert Charles in the poem, “Piedmonte,” in 1890. In the same year the +poet was elected as senator and served for a brief time. To him Liberty +now became an ideal for art, literature and religion, as well as for +the State. + +Although the more serious interpreters of Carducci’s political +fluctuations trace the gradual, and reasonable, steps from hatred +of monarchy to acceptance and even poetic homage, there are other +commentators who give a romantic flavor to the change of attitude. They +declare that the new allegiance may be explained by a visit that the +King and Queen made to Bologna. Carducci was lame and disinclined to +meet people socially; he was immersed in his books and a few friends, +outside his University classes. The story runs that Queen Marguerite, +who was a literary critic and sponsor of the arts, invited the poet +to an audience. Such an invitation is a summons but Carducci went +unwillingly. He came away, however, from the visit inspired by the +Queen’s appreciative sympathy and her literary insight. Thenceforward +she was to him “Eterno femminino Regale.” Letters passed between the +Queen and the poet. Their friendship has been compared to that of +Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, in inspirational quality. + +As the years passed the Queen was able to serve both the poet and +her country, for Carducci’s health and finances became impaired. In +1899 he suffered a stroke of paralysis which crippled him somewhat +but he continued his work at the University, assisted by his favorite +pupil, the poet Severino Ferrari. That he might not be obliged to sell +his valuable library the Queen purchased this, with the arrangement +that he might use it during his life. After his death she purchased +his home, also, and gave this to the Italian people as a memorial, +“Casa Carducci,” with a beautiful garden, adorned with statuary that +symbolizes some of his poems. In 1904 the government gave him a pension +and the University students honored him with a celebration. The next +year the sudden death of his assistant, Ferrari, was a terrible loss to +him and left him enfeebled in body and spirit. When the Nobel prize was +awarded the next year, he was unable to leave his chair to receive it; +the King of Sweden sent a deputy to Bologna to give the testimonial in +person to the aged poet. He lived only two months after this honor; his +funeral at Bologna was attended by thousands. Because of his Florentine +descent and his literary rank, the city of Florence offered for him a +tomb in Sta. Croce, the Italian Pantheon, but his family preferred a +burial place just outside Bologna. + +As a poet Carducci mingled vigor and grace to an unusual degree. He was +an artist both in his conceptions and his forms; he never left a poem +unfinished. His historical odes, resultant from his classical studies, +are less impressive than such lyrics as “Night,” “Fiesole,” “Idyll of +the Maremma,” “Before San Guido,” “Virgil,” and “Primo Vere” which +are found in translations by Mrs. Maud Holland.[51] A wistful sadness +is found in many of his poems of nature and life, a sensitiveness to +insincerity, a change from a mood of hopefulness to that of longing and +question. Such poetic traits are marked in the poem, “Primo Vere,” a +delicate spring-song with gentle sadness; + + Behold! from sluggish winter’s arms + Spring lifts herself again; + Naked before the steel-cold air + She shivers, as in pain, + Look, Lalage, is that a tear + In the sun’s eye that shines so clear? + Today my spirit sleeps and dreams, + Where do my far thoughts fly? + Close to thy beauty’s face we stand + And smile, the spring and I: + Yet, Lalage, whence come those tears? + Has Spring, too, felt the doom of years?[52] + +In his old age Carducci declared that “his guiding principles had +been three--in politics, Italy before all things; in art, classical +poetry before all things; in life, sincerity and strength before all +things.”[53] As he mellowed in his political opinions, so he became +less vehement against the church and Christianity in later writings. +In truth, it was not Christianity but asceticism and bigotry which he +combated. Like many poets he regretted the loss of some of the best +marks of pure paganism; he found in it truth and freedom, in contrast +with many evidences of falsehood and slavery in the Christian world +of his day. He did not always get a vision of life as a whole, only +a segment which was sometimes distorted in perspective. He was more +interested in historical and poetic figures than in creative types. +Italy of the past and her classic literature were his ideals in his +later writings. Rejecting romanticism as exotic, he pleaded for “the +representation of reality with truth.” In summary of his aim and its +fulfillment, Mr. Bickersteth has written with lucidity: “Carducci’s +conception of reality, considered from the artistic point of view, +controls his treatment of all the chief themes of his poetry, as will +at once become apparent if we examine any of these at all closely. Man, +Nature, Liberty, for instance--he held it incumbent upon the poets +of his own time to deal mainly with these three, and they constitute +accordingly a large portion of the subject-matter of his own verse.” +It is difficult to identify the word idealism with much of Carducci’s +poetry about women--for he was strongly realistic in his love poems, in +general, often compared to Walt Whitman in his emphasis of the physical +attractiveness of woman. Again, he too often failed in his efforts +to adapt old Latin forms to modern themes and reflections. In spite +of such defects, however, Carducci’s poetry at his best, his earnest +patriotism and his hopes for Italy, reflects his country, says Mr. +Bickersteth, “in her purest and serenest aspect, and her ideals linked +on to many, if not all, the most cherished traditions of her past.”[54] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[45] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1907. + +[46] Found in original and translation in _Carducci: a Selection of His +Poems_, etc. by G. L. Bickersteth, London, 1913, p. 141. + +[47] _Ibid._, p. 8. + +[48] _Italian Influences: Carducci and Dante_ by Eugene Schuyler, New +York, 1901, p. 24. By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. + +[49] _Impressioni e ricordi_ by Chiarini, p. 237. + +[50] _Carducci: a Selection of His Poems_ by G. L. Bickersteth, +Copyright by Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, 1913. By +permission of Longmans, Green & Co. + +[51] _Poems by Giosuè Carducci_: with an introduction and translations +by Maud Holland, New York, 1907. + +[52] _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1909. By permission of Leonard Scott +Publication Co. + +[53] _Ibid._, “The Poetry of Carducci.” + +[54] _Carducci: a Selection of His Poems_ by G. L. Bickersteth, London +and New York, 1913. By permission of Longmans, Green & Co. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WRITINGS OF RUDYARD KIPLING BEFORE AND AFTER THE AWARD + + + The prize of 1907 has been awarded: + + Kipling, Rudyard, born 1865: “in consideration of the power of + observation, originality of imagination, and also the manly strength + in the art of perception and delineation that characterize the + writings of this world-renowned author.”[55] + +Six years passed after the first prizes were given in literature +from the Nobel fund; the countries honored thus far had been France, +Germany, Norway, Spain, Italy, and Poland. “Where is Great Britain +on the literary map?” asked certain speakers and writers. Names of +British authors had been sent to the Committee of the Nobel Foundation +and the Swedish Academy, with ardent commendation by individuals and +academic circles. Prominent among such names, suggested in the press, +had been Swinburne, George Meredith, John Morley, Thomas Hardy, Barrie, +and Robert Bridges. One journal asked, “Why not Kipling?” The answer +came in the announcement that the award for 1907 was given to Rudyard +Kipling, poet and story-teller. Again the issue, “What is Idealism?” +was raised and challenged by some opponents of this choice yet, on the +whole, it met with wide favor. Kipling’s type of robust idealism was +defended; said W. B. Parker, “His idealism needs no other evidence than +the enthusiastic following he has had from boys.”[56] + +Combined with this _robust idealism_ are two other qualities of +Kipling as writer, that have given him “the enthusiastic following of +boys”--his virility and courage. For adolescents and college youths +he has upheld the ideals of vigorous action, of honor and bravery, of +daring in speech and deed. In his dynamic poems and tales of _The Day’s +Work_, _Kim_, _Life’s Handicap_, and the other volumes so familiar, +he reflects his “gospel” of fearlessness, that does not hesitate +to shock some who abide by the conventional standards of speech. +Gilbert K. Chesterton has said forceful truths about this trait of +Kipling in _Heretics_: he affirms that credit is due to Kipling for +his appreciation of _slang_ and _steam_. He expands the thought thus: +“Steam may be, if you like, a dirty by-product of science. Slang may +be, if you like, a dirty by-product of language. But at least he has +been among the few who saw the living parentage of these things and +knew that where there is smoke, there is fire--that is, wherever +there is the foulest of things there, also, is the purest.”[57] Mr. +Chesterton declares that Kipling’s type of courage is not that of +war, nor valor of the battle-field, but “that interdependence and +efficiency which belongs quite as much to engineers, or sailors, or +mules, or railway engineers.” Recurrent in memory are such tales as +“The Bridge-Builders,” “The Ship That Found Herself,” “.007,” “With the +Night Mail” and “Wireless.” + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co._ + _Photograph by E. O. Hoppe_ + +RUDYARD KIPLING] + +One trait sharply differentiates Kipling from some of his colleagues +among the Nobel prize winners. He is a patriot-poet but with less +ardent tribute than is found in the verse of Mistral and Björnson +and Heidenstam. Perhaps his open criticism of his country in certain +political crises has barred him from the laureateship. His frank, +democratic attitude in later years, somewhat in contrast with earlier +utterances of imperialism, finds expression in every stanza of “A +Pilgrim’s Way.” Few poets, however, have written such magnetic lines in +urgence of “fitness,” honor and service for country as has Kipling, in +the familiar words of “If,” “For All We Have and Are,” “The Children’s +Song,” and the refrain in the poem in _Land and Sea Tales for Scouts +and Scoutmasters_-- + + Be fit--be fit--for honour’s sake be fit! + +He is patriotic with the world knowledge of a traveled man; two +examples in proof are found in “The Return” and “The English Flag,” +with the pertinent query-- + + And what should they know of England who only England know? + +In recent years it has been a “fad” in certain journals to depreciate +Kipling and to charge against him faults of narrowness in outlook and +lack of modernism. Especially during the years of the war and its +immediate aftermath one found tones of sad, somewhat cynical writing. +In large measure this was due to the personal trials of the time and +the loss of his son. That elegiac poem, “My Boy Jack; 1914-1918,” will +live as a heart-gripping memorial. In his speech at the Sorbonne, +November 19, 1921, he gave evidences of spiritual recovery; he said, +“One cannot resume a broken world as easily as one can resume a broken +sentence. But before long our sons who have spent themselves in +suffering and toiling to abolish the menace of barbarism will recover +also from the menace of moral lassitude.” With old-time sprightliness +and vigor he wrote, in the spring of 1924, the stanzas “A Song of the +French Roads,” after a visit to France and the joyful experience of +finding the roads to the border, that had been laid out by Napoleon +and devastated by the war, were now repaired and open to traffic.[58] + +It was the Kipling of the earlier years of writing who received the +Nobel prize. He was forty-two years old, one of the youngest winners. +He had already published volumes of prose and verse that would be +creditable to a writer of twice his age. Born at Bombay, December 30, +1865, he inherited intellectual promise from both parents. His father, +John Lockwood Kipling, an artist, was at that time Director of the +Lahore School of Industrial Art. He was a delightful story-teller and +expertly trained in technical and artistic knowledge. He illustrated +some of his son’s earlier tales; a book by him, entitled _Beast and Man +in India_, with unusual drawings, was attributed to Rudyard Kipling +(London, 1891). Alice MacDonald, the mother, gave to her son a keen +zest in life and a rare sense of humor. Her devotion has had many lines +of commemoration, notably in such a poem as “Mother O’ Mine.” + +The boy was named Joseph Rudyard but he seldom used the first name. +The second, in memory of a lake in England where his father and mother +had met, is so arresting and unique that it has been called one of the +causes of his first appeal to the curious public. After his early +boyhood in India, leaving with him strong impressions and love for +the land, he was sent to Southsea, Devonshire, to school and later to +the United Services College at Westward Ho. He was homesick for his +mother and found it difficult to mix well with the English-born boys. +_Stalky & Co._ is largely autobiographical of this period. In 1880 he +returned to India, anxious to enter journalism and know the native +people, especially in the army. The story runs that once, when Kipling +was doing journalistic work in Lahore, the Duke of Connaught visited +the place and asked the young man what he would prefer to do in India. +The reply came promptly, “I would like, sir, to live with the army for +a time, and go to the frontier to write up Tommy Atkins.” The request +was granted and the literary results in later years are listed in +_Department Ditties_, _Soldiers Three_, _Under the Deodars_, and many +more stories in volumes, from _Plain Tales from the Hills_ to _Eyes of +Asia_. + +Much discussion has been rife about the truth or exaggeration of +Kipling’s pictures of India, especially types of army men and +officers’ wives. Many critics, who have traveled in India, affirm +the photographic quality of the tales and verse but some raise the +issue of the tone--is it sincere or sardonic? Others, who claim to +have talked with certain “natives,” condemn both the spirit and the +characterizations. To the charge of insincerity or disloyalty there +seems to be a firm answer in the friendly Prelude to _Departmental +Ditties_, which has a prominent place in the Inclusive Edition of +_Rudyard Kipling’s Verse_. He lays stress, in the last stanza, upon +“the jesting guise” but he emphasizes, also, his loyalty to these +people, especially in the second stanza: + + Was there aught that I did not share + In vigil or toil or ease,-- + One joy or woe that I did not know, + Dear hearts across the seas?[59] + +During these years from 1882 to 1889, while he was doing journalistic +work and associating with civil and military representatives in Lahore, +Bombay, and Mandalay, he was writing stories and verses which appeared +in the newspaper columns of India. The first issue in book form was by +A. H. Wheeler & Co. of Allahabad, a little book in gray paper covers +which was sold at railway stations. In his own hand and with striking +illustrations, Kipling edited some of his early tales; one such, “Wee +Willie Winkie,” dedicated to his mother, with others that formed “an +illustrated set,” found a purchaser in J. Pierpont Morgan, in recent +years at a price stated to be $17,000.[60] + +When Kipling was twenty-five years old, with his memory packed with +scenes of adventure and characters in India, and his pockets filled +with unpublished tales and verse, he decided to try his literary fate +in England. He traveled by way of the Pacific to California and reached +New York with hopes of editorial encouragement because he had letters +of introduction. He was not received with cordiality; perhaps in later +years some of these editors and publishers regretted their lost chance +to launch a new genius. In London, he attracted attention slowly but, +with influence from family and officials, he won recognition by critics +and reading-public. One of the first to appreciate Kipling’s unique +work was Andrew Lang; later he was severe in criticism of certain +faults. One of his essays upon Kipling of the earlier _Tales_ is +included in _Essays in Little_ (Scribner’s, 1891). It has a prophetic +note, an emphasis of “the brilliance of colour,” the strange, varied +themes, the “perfume of the East.” + +The Nobel prize was given to Kipling because of these qualities of +his earlier work, as well as his more mature, potent messages. He +had, from the first, rare ability to revivify, to secure for future +generations of readers the real and the romantic in Anglo-India of the +later nineteenth century. He preserved the landscapes, the customs, the +ideals, the intrigues, the foibles, even the slang of the natives and +the British soldiers. Just as Mistral saved the language and romances +of Provence from oblivion, in his _Mireio_ and other poems; just as +Björnson recorded the almost forgotten sagas of Norway and blended +these with modern, peasant life; so Kipling made literary use of this +unfamiliar material of India. His idealism converted the ordinary, +often petty and rough aspects of life, into stories and verses of +undying flavor, like “The Phantom Rickshaw,” _Soldiers Three_, “Drums +of the Fore and Aft,” “On the City Wall,” “M’Andrew’s Hymn,” “Danny +Deever,” “Mandalay,” and “The Lover’s Litany.” Here are recorded days +of adventure and danger, nights of memory and longing. In 1902, more +than ten years after he left India, he wrote one of his most appealing +poems, “The Broken Men,” the exiles from England with their pluck and +their pathos, which grips the sympathies like those tales of O. Henry +about the American self-imposed “exiles” in Central America. + +The later visit that Kipling made to the United States cheered his +heart, in contrast to the earlier reception. He had met Caroline +Balestier, sister of Wolcott Balestier, a young man with whom Kipling +became intimate in London and with whom he collaborated in the novel, +_The Naulahka_. Their home was in Brattleboro, Vermont. In 1892 Miss +Balestier was married to Kipling in All Soul’s Church, Portland Place, +London. They came to Vermont to live for a few years in the unique +house, which Kipling built for his bride overlooking Brattleboro. Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle accredits him with “chivalrous devotion” to his +wife, which caused him to come to America lest she might miss her +home and friends.[61] Before coming to America they took a journey +“round the world,” or a segment of it. The death of Wolcott Balestier +was a deep grief to his friend and a loss to American literature. In +dedicatory elegy (_Barrack-Room Ballads_) Kipling wrote the lines of +noble characterization: + + E’en as he trod that day to God so walked he from his birth, + In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth.[62] + +For the little daughter, who died at an early age, Kipling wrote his +first _Jungle Book_. In this American home he wrote, also, many of +the poems collected in _The Seven Seas_ and the short stories, _Many +Inventions_. In the latter book were the daring pictures of life like +“The Disturber of Traffic,” the haunting tale of “The Lost Legion,” +and the tragic “Love o’ Women.” The inspiration of Mrs. Kipling, her +perfect appreciation of her husband’s gifts and moods, and her gracious +influence have been attested by him in many tender words, as well as +in the more impersonal tributes to womanhood of brains and heart, which +one finds expressed in _From Sea to Sea_ or “His Chance in Life.” The +world will never forget the persistent story that Mrs. Kipling saved, +from the wastebasket, that grand hymn of all time, “The Recessional.” +In some of his tales he antagonized Americans, notably in _The Light +That Failed_ and “An Habitation Enforced” in _Actions and Reactions_; +as compensation one recalls “An Error of the Fourth Dimension” from +_Plain Tales_, the story of Wilton Sargent, American. + +The writing of Kipling showed advance in form during the decade from +1890 to 1900. There was gradual elimination of the jingoism and +cynicism which tainted some of his earlier work. In 1897 he visited +South Africa again. He recounted an actual experience in riding on +a Cape Government Railway in his tale “.007,” among the stories in +_The Day’s Work_, published in 1898. In this same collection is found +“The Brushwood Boy,” a masterpiece of mystic idealism which will +stand beside his more poetic allegory, “They.” The year 1899 has been +regarded sometimes as a crisis in the life of Kipling which affected +his later writing. On his arrival in New York, in the late autumn +of that year, he was attacked by a severe case of pneumonia and was +desperately ill for many weeks. The press of America, England, and +the Continent awaited the bulletins with anxiety. He recovered but +some critics have affirmed that he lost his vigor and literary power. +Looking over the dates of his poems, and recalling the books which have +appeared since this crisis, such a surmise is not warranted. One could +scarcely expect that any author could continue to write, on a level +or ascending scale, many more books about India than he had already +written or many more poems of vital spell like “If,” “When Earth’s Last +Picture is Painted,” and “M’Andrew’s Hymn.” + +He had already proved his ability to write for children and +adolescents. Few books among juveniles surpass, in visualization and +imaginative skill, _The Jungle Books_, _Just So Stories_, and that +pioneer sea tale that has gained favor with the years, _Captains +Courageous_. In the years that followed his serious illness, he wrote +tales of clever inventiveness collected in _Puck of Pook’s Hill_, +_Rewards and Fairies_, and _Kim_. To this period belong, also, many +of the poems collected in the volume, _The Five Nations_. Who will +say that there was decadence of literary power, any lapse of dramatic +skill, in that story of _Kim_, or Kimball O’Hara, the orphan boy of +Lahore? The boys of to-day--and normal girls--have wholesome “thrills” +at this lad’s story, his pilgrimages over India with the Tibetan +lama, and his final adoption by the regiment to which his father had +belonged. Humor, adventure, vivid photographs of places and people--all +are mingled in this tale. When it appeared in the London edition +of 1901, the father of Kipling contributed some of the striking +illustrations. + +_The Five Nations_ of this later period gave permanence in form to such +vital poems as “White Horses,” “Our Lady of the Snows” (the beautiful +ode to Canada), “The Dykes,” “The Feet of the Young Men,” “Boots,” +“The Explorer,” and “The Recessional.” “Buddha at Kamakura,” which +first appeared in _Kim_, should be listed in this collection. Are there +here traces of lapse in form or spontaneity compared with the earlier, +less restrained verses in _Departmental Ditties_ or _Barrack-Room +Ballads_? In _Traffics and Discoveries_, published in 1904, are found +such literary achievements as “Wireless,” “They,” and “The Army of a +Dream.” Kipling had shown his keen observation, humor, and appreciation +of varied beauties of Nature in his volumes of travel-sketches and +letters, _From Sea to Sea_ and _Letters of Travel_. “In Sight of +Monadnock” contains a brief, fine description of that distant New +Hampshire peak. With his long experience in travel and adjustment to +diverse conditions of life, Kipling has ever been a poet of home, +national and domestic. His poem, “Sussex,” written in 1902, has deep +feeling as well as notable lines of description and a rhythmic swing. + +New poets and story-writers came into prominence with the twentieth +century. Although Kipling was in his full maturity and vigor when the +Nobel prize was awarded, with years of promising, creative work before +him, he had been so long before the public that it became the fashion, +in some brilliant, cynical groups, to speak of him as belonging to the +older generation. His volumes attracted less attention in competition +with those of mere “modernism.” The announcement of the Nobel prize, +in 1907, aroused interest anew in every country. In looking over the +Kipling bibliographical cards, in the Widener Library at Harvard +University, it is interesting to find records of translations of his +books into Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, +Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish. The journals took occasion to +review what he had accomplished in literature before 1907, to commend +or reprove the decision of the Swedish Academy in giving him a prize +for “idealistic” literature. Some cited his imperialistic “complex” +and quoted “The Man Who Would Be King.” In _Current Literature_ for +October, 1908, are quotations from diverse opinions: Said the _London +Nation_: “There is hardly any English writer more closely identified +with the doctrine of force or a firmer believer that the Deity is +to be found on the side of the big battalions.” The _New York World_ +declared, “He sings of blood-lust, with a schoolboy’s disregard of +consequences.” The _Chicago Post_ believed that his idealism was “the +idealization of might” but it praised his strong, Biblical English. + +Comments of this kind fail to recognize the _two_, paradoxical traits +in Kipling’s nature and writings. There is stark realism, sometimes +relentless, as in “The Courtship of Dinah Shadd,” “The Gate of a +Hundred Sorrows,” “My Son’s Wife,” or poems like “The Galley-Slave,” +“Danny Deever,” and “Kitchener’s School.” Close beside this realism, +penetrating and often sordid, sounds a note of idealism, a promise +of “a happy issue out of all troubles,” a vision that comes to an +idealist. Recall that in _The Day’s Work_, there is the tense, +realistic tale of “The Devil and the Deep Sea,” and, within a few +pages, the idyll of “The Brushwood Boy.” + +Since the Nobel prize was received, Kipling has written with less +frequency and more unevenness of form. Some of the prose and verse +reflects the war, like “Fringes of the Fleet,” “Sea Warfare,” “France,” +and the “History of the Irish Guards.” Not soon forgotten will be that +tribute to Roosevelt, tender and virile, “Great-Heart” (1919). In the +collected poems, _The Years Between_, there are challenging war poems, +“For All We Have and Are,” an appeal to England, and “The Choice, or +The American Spirit Speaks,” for the United States. The elegy to “Lord +Roberts,” less militant in tone, is true poetry in emotion and measure. +Some stanzas are touched by irony, and have the sermonic quality which +is characteristic--“The Sons of Martha,” “En-Dor” and “Russia to the +Pacifists.” The juvenile of 1923, _Land and Sea Tales for Boys and +Girls_ (or _for Scouts and Scoutmasters_) is uneven in quality but it +has two dramatic sketches. _Eyes of Asia_, portraits of Europeans as +seen by Oriental eyes, is more comparable to mediocre pages in _Actions +and Reactions_ than it is to the more vital stories in _Plain Tales_ +and _The Day’s Work_. “Fumes of the Heart” is the best of these later +tales. + +Mr. Kipling is reaping honors in educational and civic life. His +reserve, which is sometimes rated as coldness, keeps him far from the +limelight of publicity. He cannot be persuaded to “come to America” +as lecturer or reader, in the train of many of his compatriots of far +less worth or fame. In his Sussex home, with family and a few friends +about him, he is a delightful _raconteur_ or conversationalist upon +topics of world-wide politics. He is more amused than angered at some +of the petty criticisms upon his writing, like the recent attack upon +“Mandalay” for its anachronisms in geography, not unlike the charges +against Shakespeare in _The Tempest_ and _The Winter’s Tale_. Arnold +Bennett, in _Books and Persons_,[63] has some comments upon Kipling’s +flaws in _Actions and Reactions_ and his “prejudices and clayey +ideals,” but he ends with tribute to him as a painstaking artist, +devoted to his craft. + +Philip Guedalla, brilliant journalist and ironist, in his essays, _A +Gallery_, under caption of “Mandalay,” says “much in little” about the +“remoteness and antiquity” of Kipling; he finds him so “antiquated” +that the “Dinosaurus” might give him “points in modernity.” Despite +such witty extravagances, however, the critic admits that Kipling “has +sharpened the English language to a knife-edge and with it has cut +brilliant patterns on the surface of our prose literature.”[64] In +both his prose and poetry he has “sharpened the English language to +a knife-edge.” His verses may seem “antiquated” to the reader whose +exclusive tastes welcome only “new poetry” and sneer at “lilting +rhymes” and conventional meters. To broader minds, however, there is +appreciation of the vibrant messages of spiritual courage, the bold and +graphic excerpts from real life, in both the verse and the fiction of +Kipling at his best. + +One of the honors that came to this writer recently was an invitation +to give the Rectorial Address at St. Andrews University, in 1923. +This has been published in book form as _Independence_, similar in +format to that of Barrie’s address, on a kindred occasion, entitled +_Courage_. Mr. Kipling urges here the fundamental duty of developing +one’s individuality: “After all,” he says, “yourself is the only person +you can by no possibility get away from in this life, and maybe, in +another. It is worth a little pains and money to do good to him.”[65] + +His idealism is not that of mere sentiment, much less of +sentimentality. It is the idealism of work, of action, of +responsibility. It is the idealism even in the midst of misjudgments, +of carrying “The White Man’s Burden,” of training youth towards clean, +productive manhood. One grants that some of his writings, both prose +and verse, might be eliminated from collections and memory, with an +increase in his literary rank. He is uneven and was prone, in his +earlier days, to mistake coarseness for vigor, yet he has been able to +make his readers both _listen_ and _see_. Perhaps he has not maintained +the almost unanimous favoritism among college youths that he had two +decades ago--there have been competitors with “college stories” of +rank realism--but it may be questioned if any author of our day is more +often quoted among both educated and unlettered adults. Mr. Kipling has +never been tempted to lower his standards for commercial ends; with +fearless truth, he has spoken messages of uprightness and service. “A +Song of the English” is national, perhaps imperialistic, but it has, +like scores of his other stanzas, a catholic message to Christian +nations everywhere: + + Keep ye the Law--be swift in all obedience-- + Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. + Make ye sure to each his own + That he reap where he hath sown; + By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord![66] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[55] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1907. + +[56] _World’s Work_, February, 1908. + +[57] _Heretics_ by Gilbert K. Chesterton, London and New York, 1915, +1919. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. + +[58] _Literary Digest_, July 5, 1924. + +[59] _Rudyard Kipling’s Verse_: Inclusive Edition, Garden City, N. Y., +1924, p. 3. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co. + +[60] _Bookman_, 25: 561. + +[61] _Memories and Adventures_ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Boston, 1924. + +[62] By permission of Mr. Kipling. + +[63] George H. Doran, New York, 1917. + +[64] _A Gallery_ by Philip Guedalla, New York, 1924. By permission of +G. P. Putnam’s Sons. + +[65] _Independence_: Rectorial Address at St. Andrews by Rudyard +Kipling, New York, 1924. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, +Page & Co. + +[66] _Rudyard Kipling’s Verse_: Inclusive Edition, Garden City, N. Y., +1924. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SELMA LAGERLÖF--SWEDISH REALIST AND IDEALIST + + + The prize of 1909 has been awarded: + + Lagerlöf, Selma, born 1858: “because of the noble idealism, the + wealth of fancy and the spiritual quality that characterize her + works.”[67] + +“I declare it to be my express desire that in the awarding of the +prizes no consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of the +candidates, that is to say, that the most deserving be awarded the +prize, whether of Scandinavian origin or not.” These words from the +will of Alfred Nobel had been faithfully obeyed during the first +eight years of the awards in literature. Only once had the prize +been given to a Scandinavian, to Björnson, the Norwegian, in 1903. +When the announcement came that the winner for 1909 was the Swedish +writer, Selma Lagerlöf, the most severe critics of the Nobel Foundation +Committee in former years were either commendatory or silently +acquiescent. Here was an author who richly deserved the prize, for +she was already known throughout Europe and America for her unique +fiction, in which photographic realism was always blended with a +dominant note of idealism. The juvenile book which combined geography, +fancy, humor, and fascination for old and young, _The Wonderful +Adventures of Nils_, and other books had followed the strange tale +of folklore and character study, _The Story of Gösta Berling_; these +writings were outstanding evidences of her literary gifts. It was an +honor to womanhood everywhere that the Nobel prize was given to Selma +Lagerlöf, first of the countrymen of Nobel to be thus immortalized in +literature. In her years of teaching and her later messages from the +press, she had shown her sincere purpose “to benefit mankind.” + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation_ + +SELMA LAGERLÖF] + +It is interesting to note that the family name of this woman means +“laurel leaf,” a symbol of her fame. In _Mårbacka_, one of her later +books to be translated into English, the reader finds detached +photographs of the home and environment of this author’s girlhood. Mrs. +Velma Swanston Howard, who has been so successful as translator of Miss +Lagerlöf’s books, knows perfectly the languages of both Sweden and +England; she is a friend of the author, with kinship in her traditions +and spirit, and thus has sustained that indefinable but pervading +“atmosphere” which characterizes all of Miss Lagerlöf’s fiction. The +setting of _Mårbacka_ is alive with elements of Nature and humanity, +with folklore and “wonderful tales of old Varmland” which became the +basis for many of her later books. The spacious manor house, where +Selma Lagerlöf was born sixty-seven years ago, becomes familiar to +readers of this autobiography. The nursery chairs, with individual +names and portraits of Johan, Anna, and little Selma Ottiliana Louisa, +were treasured heirlooms; the beds that “parted company,” perhaps, +in the night and the old owl in the lumber-loft above the bedroom, +contributed infantile “thrills” and memories. + +A gay-hearted, courageous, popular man was her father, Lieutenant +Lagerlöf, retired from the army but entertaining former associates in +his home and recounting, for his daughter’s education, tales of earlier +history of Sweden and his family. The germ-idea of Gösta Berling, +hero of her first romance, came after a reminiscence that her father +had told her one morning after breakfast, his memory of “the most +fascinating of men,” one who could sing, write poetry, dance so that +all feet moved in unison, and could bend everyone’s will to his own +mood--and yet one who lacked certain qualities of manly strength. The +mother of Selma Lagerlöf came from two generations of ministers; she +was quiet, practical, intuitive, a fine administrator of her large +household and frequent guests. Aunt Lovisa gave a touch of romance to +the family circle by a sad chapter in her past that is recounted in +“The Bridal Crown,” the tragic result (according to legend) of the +substitution of whortleberry for myrtle in the wreath for the bride’s +hair. The nurse, Back-Kaisa, large and stern yet devoted to the family, +was another interesting character at Mårbacka; from the old housekeeper +and the grandmother the children learned stories, sagas, and bits of +family histories. + +When Selma Lagerlöf was three and a half years old, after bathing in +a fresh-water pond with her father, she developed a form of infantile +paralysis. Months of inactivity followed; some lasting results of +this disease have been handicaps of the author throughout her life. +With humor and realistic portrayal of a child’s point of view of this +period, she tells in _Mårbacka_, the chapter “Grand Company,” how +she increased in social importance in the family, having exclusive +attention of the grim nurse, and dainties to eat in place of the usual +food, much to the jealous disgust of her brother and sister. A sojourn +at Stromstead by the sea brought new vigor and recovery of motion to +the little girl; with amazement to herself and her family she walked to +investigate a brilliant, stuffed “bird of paradise.” The sprightly zest +in living, which characterizes the author’s personality, is reflected +in all her books. Animals as pets, poultry of the farmyard, and birds +and flowers are vital factors in her earlier and later tales. + +Among important influences of her childhood was the singing of Bellman +Ballads, with their humor, pathos, and haunting music. One day when +Miss Lagerlöf had won a place among twenty-five chosen candidates at +Teachers’ College in Stockholm, and had been listening to a lecture +about Bellman and Runeberg and their ballads, she had her “flash of +inspiration.” She determined to tell stories about her own Varmland; +she would become narrator of her “Cavaliers” and would incorporate +into her tales the legends, folklore and real characters of the home +district. She had cherished ambitions to write verse and even plays, +from the days when, as a young girl, she visited her uncle in Stockholm +and went to the theatre with the old housekeeper, becoming impressed +by peasant plays and scenes from Nosselt’s _History_. She had lain +awake at night, composing rhymes and neglecting the sleep which would +have fitted her for the tasks of the next day in “composition and +arithmetic.”[68] + +After graduation she taught at Landskrona, in the province of Skåne, +always hoping to find time to write, always meeting disappointments +because of the demands of the classroom, often telling orally some of +her tales to her pupils after school hours, always returning to her old +home, Mårbacka, in vacations and gaining new impetus for her literary +aspirations. Her first chapter of _The Story of Gösta Berling_ was +composed on a Christmas holiday evening when she, with members of her +family, was returning from a party at a distant neighbor’s house. A +blizzard was raging and she sat in the sleigh, covered with furs, while +the old horse, urged by the aged coachman, tried to plough through the +drifts, in defiance of the wild winds. In her mind was formulated that +chapter of the Christmas night at the smithy, which is an arresting +episode in the complete novel. She made first a metrical version; +then she tried it in dramatic form and, finally, wrote it as a short +story. Later she wrote other episodes--that of the flood at Ekeby and +another of the ball. In 1890, at the urgence of her sister, she sent +some of these episodic stories to a prize competition, offered by the +magazine, _Idun_, for the best novelette of one hundred pages. A few +weeks later the journal announced that some of the manuscripts were “so +confusedly written that they could not be considered for the prize”; +Miss Lagerlöf was sure that hers was among this rejected class. Then +came a telegram, signed by three classmates, with the words, “Hearty +Congratulations.” + +The editor offered to publish the novel, in expanded form, if Miss +Lagerlöf could have it ready in a short time. Again, she was in despair +when a friend, Baroness Aldersparre, arranged financial matters so that +the teacher could be given a year’s leave of absence--and “the miracle +happened.” When she had completed this initial story, combining Swedish +legend, history of the days of the Cavaliers and the pensioners and +the old forges, with humor and delicate idealism, she was dissatisfied +because it seemed to her “wild and disjointed.” There are passages +where the sentences are detached, places where the links in her chain +of plot are weak. In structure she has gained skill, as is evident +by a comparison of her earlier fiction with such masterworks as the +first part of _Jerusalem_ and _The Emperor of Portugallia_. With this +improved technic, she has kept her spontaneity, her vital realism and +intuition, her spiritual insight. After the publication of one of her +novels, the _London Times_ said, with true emphasis upon her unusual +combination of qualities: “She is an idealist pure and simple in a +world given over to realism, yet such is the perfection of her style +and the witchery of her fancy that a generation of realists worship +her.” An optimism which defies apparent failures, akin to that of +Browning, brings about the redemption of her characters from Gösta +Berling, drunken poet-preacher and fascinating vagabond, and flighty +Marianne Sinclair to Lilliecrona, the restless violinist, and Glory +Golden Sunnycastle, heroine of _The Emperor of Portugallia_. + +Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard said, in a recent interview with the writer +of this book, that Miss Lagerlöf, like her translator, considers this +story of Jan, who calls himself “The Emperor of Portugallia,” and his +daughter, Glory, as her best work in fiction. Thousands of readers will +echo the preference. To the incisive, ruthless realism in this tale she +has added sympathy that grips the heart, poetic setting and sagas, and +a message that is more impressive because it is dramatic rather than +sermonic. The threads of this story are seldom tangled; the pattern +stands out with distinctness and artistry. + +_Invisible Links_, a collection of short stories, was published in +1894, with peasants, fisherfolk, children, and animals all “linked” +in interrelations of spirit; Miss Lagerlöf then received a yearly +stipend for her services to literature, through the friendly interest +of the Swedish Academy and King Oscar and his son, Prince Eugen. With +a friend she went to Italy and Sicily, gaining impressions that bore +harvest in _Miracles of Antichrist_, issued in 1897 and translated +into English two years later by Pauline Bancroft Flach, who had done +the same service for _The Story of Gösta Berling_ and _Invisible +Links_. Mingling traditions and poetry of old Sicily with reactions +to modern socialism and its effects upon established religion, Miss +Lagerlöf wrote with deep fervor and colorful imagination. The slight +plot is evolved about the ruse of the Englishwoman who coveted an image +of Christ as a child, in a church in Rome, and substituted an image, +seemingly the same but with the legend upon the crown, “My Kingdom +is only of this World.” By a miracle, a few weeks later, the false +image is cast down and the true Christchild stands in the doorway. The +Antichrist is taken away to Sicily where miracles of helpfulness are +recorded by its agnostic followers. Miss Lagerlöf seeks to preach, +through the words of the Pope to Father Gondo, the ideal of unity +between Christianity and antichristianity: “You could take the great +popular movement in your arms, while it is still lying like a child +in its swaddling clothes, and you could bear it to Jesus’ feet; and +Antichrist would see that he is nothing but an imitation of Christ, and +would acknowledge him his Lord and Master.”[69] + +_From a Swedish Homestead_, which was published in 1899, contains the +strong, mystical novelette, “The Story of a Country House.” A student +at Upsala University loses his reason as a result of seeing his flock +of sheep frozen to death in a storm when, by his forethought, the +tragedy might have been averted. Known as “The Goat,” he wanders about +the countryside, selling toys and trinkets, until his redemption and +sanity are achieved through his love for a girl of noble character. +Among the other short tales in this same volume is “Santa Catarina +of Siena,” a reflection of the Italian trip, and “The Emperor’s +Money Chest,” which is allegorical yet photographic of Belgium in an +industrial crisis. + +Two other books preceded the award of the Nobel prize--_Jerusalem_ +and _The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_, with its sequel. In 1899, +the Swedish government gave to Miss Lagerlöf a commission to go to +Palestine. She was to report, on her return, upon conditions which she +might discover there in the Swedish colony which had migrated from Nås, +a parish of Dalecarlia, a few years previously. Urged by promoters +of missionary enterprise, among them Mrs. Edward Gordon of Chicago, +scores of peasants and householders had sold their homesteads and left +their families to join this colony in the Holy Land. Rumors had come to +Sweden of direful conditions there--of disease and hunger, of depleted +morale and bickerings among colonists and missionaries. “Jerusalem +kills!” became a common phrase of the day. Miss Lagerlöf undertook +investigation and made a report on existent evils and exaggerated +rumors. She accomplished a far more important work for literature than +this report. She gathered material for one of her most emotional, +graphic books, _Jerusalem_. Against the background of facts, both in +Dalecarlia and Palestine, she wove a story of intense feeling, with +folklore, psychological insight, and characterization of a fine type. +The portrayals of the Ingmarsson family and the women, Brita, Karin, +and Gertrude, whose fates were interlinked with those of the later +generation of the ancestral family of Dalecarlia, are vivid. + +Humor relieves the tragic intensity of this book, so well rendered +into English by Mrs. Howard who has, says Mr. Henry Goddard Leach in +the Introduction, been able “to reproduce the original in essence as +well as verisimilitude.” An example of the descriptive style of this +story of Swedish life under religious tension is found in the opening +sentences of the chapter, “The Departure of the Pilgrims” of Part +I.[70] “One beautiful morning in July, a long train of cars and wagons +set out from the Ingmar Farm. The Hellgumists had at last completed +their arrangements, and were now leaving for Jerusalem--the first stage +of the journey being the long drive to the railway station. + +“The procession, in moving towards the village, had to pass a wretched +hovel which was called Mucklemire. The people who lived there were a +disreputable lot--the kind of scum of the earth which must have sprung +into being when our Lord’s eyes were turned, or when he had been too +busy elsewhere. + +“There was a whole horde of dirty, ragged youngsters on the place, who +were in the habit of running loose all day, shrieking after passing +vehicles, and calling the occupants bad names; there was an old crone +who usually sat by the roadside, tipsy; and there were a husband and +wife who were always quarrelling and fighting, and who had never been +known to do any honest work. No one could say whether they begged more +than they stole, or stole more than they begged. + +“When the Jerusalem-farers came alongside this wretched hovel, which +was about as tumbledown as a place can become when wind and storm +have, for many years, been allowed to work havoc, they saw the old +crone standing erect and sober at the roadside, on the same spot where +she usually sat in a drunken stupor ... and with her were four of the +children. All five were now washed and combed, and as decently dressed +as it was possible for them to be.... + +“All the Jerusalem-farers suddenly burst into tears, the grown-ups +crying softly, while the children broke into loud sobs and wails.... +When they had all passed by, Beggar Lina also began to weep. + +“‘Those people are going to Heaven to meet Jesus,’ she told the +children. ‘All those people are going to Heaven, but we are left +standing by the wayside.’” + +Another literary outcome of the visit of Miss Lagerlöf to Palestine +was a renewed interest in legends about Jesus and the Virgin Mary. +Always deeply religious, with an unusual ability to blend worship with +tradition and never lose the distinctive flavor of each element, she +wrote the tales that were collected as _Christ Legends_, translated +by Mrs. Howard in 1908. Here are new, impressive versions of such old +myths as “The Wise Men’s Well,” “Saint Veronica’s Kerchief,” and “Robin +Redbreast.” + +The Swedish school authorities wished for a good geography which should +be popular with the children and satisfy the teachers. The National +Teachers’ Association appealed to Miss Lagerlöf for such a book and the +results were _The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_ and _Further Adventures +of Nils_, appearing in 1906 and 1907. These books, so widely read in +schools and homes in every civilized country to-day, are worthy a place +on the shelves beside _Alice in Wonderland_ of the past and _Doctor +Doolittle_ of the present type of juveniles. The boy, Nils Holgersson, +and his “goosey-gander,” with companions on the earth and in the air, +appeal to the imagination of all ages, while the information about +Sweden’s outlines and landmarks is both accurate and entertaining. + +Such had been the literary output of Miss Lagerlöf before she was +chosen for the Nobel winner of 1909. Already she had been given a gold +medal for her work by the Swedish Academy and the degree of LL.D. by +the University of Upsala. Five years after the award she was elected +to membership in the Swedish Academy, “the eighteen immortals”--the +first woman to be thus honored. When the prize was given to her, with +a grand fête at Stockholm, she was the guest of honor at a banquet at +the Grand Hotel, given by King Gustav V. Her acceptance was in the form +of a unique speech, a story, briefly told, of her summons to her father +to aid her in saying the right words, this father who, long dead, had +been her inspiration for her first work in literature and her spiritual +guide in many crises. Wistful beauty and delicate humor were blended in +the closing words:[71] “Father sits and ponders a while; then he wipes +away the tears of joy, shakes himself, and strikes his fist on the arm +of the chair. ‘I don’t care to sit 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--Ladies and Gentlemen--since I got no better +answer to all my queries, it only remains for me to ask you to join +me in a toast of gratitude, which I have the honour to propose to the +Swedish Academy.” + +Miss Lagerlöf was fifty-one years old when this honor came to her; in +the years since then she has exemplified, in spoken and written words, +“the noble idealism, the wealth of imagination, the soulful quality +of her style.” Her speech, in 1911, when the International Suffrage +Congress was held in Stockholm, was widely read and translated. In +this, as in so many of her stories, she stressed the idea of home and +its influence throughout every avenue of betterment in the world. This +year marked, also, the publication of _Lilliecrona’s Home_, translated +in English three years later by Anna Barwell. The setting was Varmland +and the hero’s home, Lövdalla, closely resembles the home of the +author, Mårbacka. This is, perhaps, the most poetic and mystical of +all her stories. The violinist who found in “music and music alone his +home, his place of rest,” is a haunting character, sharing many traits +with Gösta Berling. His life-passage is turbulent, often dramatic, +sometimes melancholy, ending in a happy romance for him and Maia Lisa, +the pastor’s daughter. There are scenes of emotional vigor, like “The +Bride’s Dance” and “The Accusation.” These are comparable to the more +familiar chapters in _The Story of Gösta Berling_, like that where +the autocratic Mistress of Ekeby is driven forth by her pensioners +because they discover that she has vowed a soul each year to the devil +(in expiation for her secret sin) or the redemptive power of Countess +Elizabeth in reclaiming Gösta’s manhood. Beautiful descriptions of +apple orchards in bloom are found in the later book, interwoven with +romantic legends like the excitement for the pastor’s daughter when +young Lilliecrona comes forward in her dream and offers her water +“after the magic pancake,” a sure prophecy that he will be her husband. + +Against the same background of her girlhood home is placed the later, +strong story of _The Emperor of Portugallia_. This is less episodic +and more unified than some of her other fiction. Jan, the dull, +plodding man with no zest in life until he holds in his arms his little +daughter, whom he calls Glory Goldie Sunnycastle, is a vital character; +we share his pride in the beauty and charm of Glory, his faith in her +even when rumors would smirch her moral character, not without basis, +as she goes out into the world to save the home for Jan and his wife, +Katrina, his final act of self-sacrifice when, with clouded mind but +spiritual vision, he would save her from the demons of “Pride and +Hardness, Lust and Vice.” This story has been well called in France “an +epic of fatherhood--a Swedish _Père Goriot_.” + +In 1922 appeared in the United States _The Outcast_, the English +version of _Bannlyst_, as its title was in Swedish when it was +published in 1918. The World War entered as a motif in the latter part +of the story, sometimes with strained effects. As a work of artistic +fiction it seems inferior to _The Story of Gösta Berling_ or _The +Emperor of Portugallia_. It has virility however, and much intensity +of feeling. Although she lived in a neutral country Miss Lagerlöf was +deeply stirred by the war and the terrible sacrifices of life. She +resented all evidences of brutal humanity. The sacredness of human +life forms her keynote in _The Outcast_. Sven Elversson, who had lived +through a fearful experience upon an Arctic expedition and had been +accused of eating human flesh in an hour of imminent famine, returns +to his mother and his home to find himself denounced by the villagers +and even by the minister. To save his mother from further torture of +spirit, after he has tried in vain to overcome the prejudice of the +people by his charity and Christlike deeds, he goes away to the woods +of the Far North. Here he wanders, and is called “The Outcast,” until +he meets the beautiful wife of the bigoted minister who had preached +against Sven, the man who, in unfounded jealousy, had cast off his +wife. The love scenes in this book are elemental in their simplicity, +yet have poetic touches. Then comes the Battle of Jutland and the +frightful scenes when the bodies of the dead are washed upon the shores +of his home town. Sven returns and organizes a group of men to bury +the dead; in the pocket of one of the victims is found a letter which +exonerates Sven from the false charge of cannibalism. It is a daring, +grotesque tale in parts, with local color and superstition interwoven +with good character-drawing and a dominant message of faith. + +An early folk story which has been recently translated by Arthur +G. Chater, is entitled _The Treasure_. It is slight in volume and +literary value compared with such major books as _Jerusalem_ and _The +Emperor of Portugallia_. It has features of the spectacular with +restrained dramatic power. It lends itself to scenario effects because +of the pictorial background and the brilliant contrasts in characters +and sentiments. In Sweden of the sixteenth century, in the days of +Frederick II of Denmark (who was also ruler of Sweden), occurred this +legendary tale. It mingles the sea, with its galleys and its wild +storms, with the parsonage and the hidden treasure chest which was +looted. All the family had been murdered by these mysterious robbers +except a foster child, Elsalill. The supernatural element is used with +fine effects; this girl is haunted by the ghost and messages from her +foster sister who was killed. Elsalill is in anguish of spirit because +she loves the bold, persuasive, and richly apparelled Sir Archer, +although she finds that he is one of the robber-murderers. How her body +becomes his shield from the sheriff, even to her death and his escape, +forms the romantic climax of this tale. + +Miss Lagerlöf’s early ambition to become a dramatist has never wholly +died; she has written a few plays that have been staged with success +in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Among these has been a dramatization +of _The Girl from the Marshcroft_; this story has been shown as a film +in many places in America as well as abroad. The setting in rural +picturesqueness, with tragic and romantic notes mingled, affords +dramatic opportunities. Mrs. Howard says that _The Story of Gösta +Berling_ has been shown at the cinema in Sweden and elsewhere in +Europe. “Will Miss Lagerlöf ever come to the United States?” we ask her +friend and translator. The reply is a probable negative. She is deeply +interested in America and reads many books by our authors, especially +those of mystical or informing trend. She had an uncle who lived in +Seattle and, on the walls of her dining-room, are found landscapes +of Western America. She is not very strong, although never lacking +in energy of mind and purpose. The freedom and vivacity of American +women impress her as she receives many visitors, either at her summer +home at Mårbacka or in the winter at Falun, close to the scenes of the +first part of _Jerusalem_. She reads six languages with ease and is +conversant with the major interests of every country. She has a keen +humor and rare graciousness. + +Miss Lagerlöf is intensely racial and national in her literary +reflections; she is international in her sympathies and insight into +problems of life. Love of home is one of the primal qualities of her +personality and writing. She has applied her creed of “keeping the +imagination young” by never losing her own delight in sagas, hero +tales, and “belief in fairies” that will enhearten and redeem humanity. +Edwin Björkman, in _Voices of Tomorrow_, has stressed her ability +and courage “to dream and feel and aspire.” Her literary work varies +in excellence; sometimes it is weak in structure and ineffective in +artistry; in other and major portions she has clothed the commonplace +incidents of life with original, new vitality and revealed their +meanings with imaginative beauty. Her characters and settings are +racial but her impulses and messages are universal, unconfined by land +or age. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1909. + +[68] _Selma Lagerlöf; The Woman, Her Work, Her Message_ by Harry E. +Maule, Garden City, N. Y., 1917. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. + +[69] _Miracles of Antichrist_ by Selma Lagerlöf, translated by Pauline +Bancroft Flach, Garden City, N. Y., 1899. By permission of Doubleday, +Page & Co. + +[70] _Jerusalem_ by Selma Lagerlöf, translated by Velma Swanston +Howard, Garden City, N. Y., 1916. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. + +[71] _Selma Lagerlöf: The Woman, Her Work, Her Message_ by Harry E. +Maule, Garden City, N. Y., 1917. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PAUL HEYSE (1910)--GERHART HAUPTMANN (1912) + + + The prize of 1910 has been awarded: + + Heyse, Paul, born 1830, died April 2, 1914: “as a mark of esteem of + an artistry, finished and marked by an ideal conception, which he has + shown during a long and significant activity as lyric dramatist, and + as an author of romances and famous short stories.”[72] + +Two German scholars had been winners of the Nobel prize in literature +in 1904 and 1908--Theodor Mommsen and Rudolf Eucken. Two more +distinguished authors with international reputations were added in 1910 +and 1912, making four awards to German literature within eight years. +Paul Heyse, the versatile author of the year 1910 has been difficult +to classify, because he is dramatist, poet, novelist, and writer of a +form of short story known as the _Novelle_. More than one hundred and +fifty of these tales are accredited to him, in addition to prodigious +industry in other literary forms. The _Novelle_ bears some resemblance +to the short stories of Hoffmann, Tieck, Alfred de Musset, and the +American masters of this type, Poe, Hawthorne, and O. Henry. In more +definite method than some of these _conteurs_, Heyse developed a +principle which he applied and explained, in part, in his Introduction +to his _Deutscher Novellenschatz_; he stresses the fact that the +essential foundation of this form is “what children call the story” but +he adds, “A strong silhouette should not be lacking.” The “silhouette +will be a brief summary of conditions which underlie the focal scene +or incident.” Thus Heyse became creator, or developer, of this form of +fiction, with a wide range of incidents and characters, in which keen +observation of life and faithful recital were blended with idealism of +a distinctive motive--that of “glorifying nature,” human and inanimate. + +Johann Ludwig Paul Heyse was born in Berlin, March 15, 1830; he was +eighty years old when the Nobel honor was received. His father, Karl +Ludwig Heyse, with a firm, Teutonic nature, was a famous philologist +and professor at the University of Berlin. His mother came from a +Jewish family of wealth and social rank. In his _Memoirs_, her son +recalls her as “passionate and imaginative”; from her he inherited his +bent toward story-telling and delight in the sensuous which mingled +with the rationalistic trend of mind, bequeathed by his father. In +the home of the Heyses gathered scholars, authors, and artists. The +atmosphere fostered the natural precocity of the boy, Paul. One +of his older friends was Kugler, the historian of art, who had an +inspirational influence upon the youth; in manhood, Heyse married the +gifted daughter of this friend. + +At the University of Bonn, where Heyse went from Berlin, he showed +much interest in Romance languages. He was fascinated with Spanish, +especially the writings of Cervantes and Calderon. In 1849, and again +in 1852, he traveled in Italy, adding Dante, Boccaccio, and Leopardi +to his list of literary heroes. The homes of artists were open to him +and he found Italy an ideal land of “colour and grace.” Shakespeare +received his tribute throughout his literary life. He began to write +dramas and lyric poems, tales in verse and prose with youthful zest and +marks of great promise. In 1854, King Max of Bavaria offered to him a +position at the Court of Munich, at a salary of 1500 florins. Munich +was an environment sure to awaken his talent and satisfy his love of +beauty. Under Louis I it had been favored with some fine buildings; an +atmosphere of culture was pervasive. Among the poets and scholars, with +whom Heyse became associated here, were Geibel, Bodenstedt, Wilbrandt, +Luogg, and Schack, the historian. In 1868, when Louis II, successor to +King Max, insulted Geibel, the poet, and caused him to leave the city, +Heyse was depressed although he stayed in Munich, living in a charming +villa there until his death in 1914. + +From the early years of his authorship, Heyse showed an aristocratic +culture which did not dim his interest in fisherfolk, peasants, and +rural characters. Although family sorrows came upon him, and he +suffered, from 1880 to 1900, from attacks by the ardent followers +of Zola and Ibsen, yet he never lost his serenity of character and +his belief in individualistic expression. “Instinct” was his guide, +as he has exemplified in scores of his tales and dramas. The “child +of nature,” or the man or woman of inherent nobility, was incapable +of any low or mean action according to his belief. In _Salamander_, +which Mr. Georg Brandes regards as his best _Novelle_ in versified +form,[73] he expresses his creed of the vigorous life, of allegiance to +nature, in spite of failings and adverse judgments against him by the +“naturalistic school”: + + I never yet of virtue or of failing + Have been ashamed, nor proudly did adorn + Myself of one, nor thought my sins of veiling. + + Beyond all else, betwixt the nobly born + And vulgar herd, this marks the separation,-- + The cowards whose hypocrisy we scorn. + + Him I call noble, who, with moderation, + Carves his own honor, and but little heeds + His neighbors’ slander or their approbation.[74] + +Another character, familiar to readers of Heyse, Toinette of _Kinder +der Welt_ (_Children of the World_) speaks words of similar trend often +quoted; “There is but _one_ genuine nobility; to remain true to one’s +self.... He who bears within himself the true rank, lives and dies +through his own grace, and is, therefore, sovereign.” + +To Italy, Heyse turns for sensuous delights in many of his tales. +_L’Arrabiata_, probably the best known of any of his _Novellen_ by +students of German in colleges and classes, written when he was +twenty-three, has an interesting history.[75] Paul Heyse as a young +man, and his friend, Joseph Victor Scheffel, were at an inn at +Sorrento. They had been together at Capri and had planned to hold a +“literary joust,” to read to each other, at Sorrento, some new tale or +poem. Scheffel contributed the poem, _Der Trumpeter von Gättingen_; +Heyse read _L’Arrabiata_. Piquant is this tale of the maiden’s love +for Antonio, the boatman, and her maidenly pride and resistance to his +love until the injury to his arm and his plea to her, in memory of her +mother, brings about a romantic sequel. Twenty-five years later Heyse +was again at Sorrento; he sent a greeting, in rhyme, to this friend of +earlier days and later life. He told him that he had seen again his +model, “Laurella,” on the street but she did not recognize him; she was +far removed from the “madcap” of fifteen, the “cross-patch,” with her +youthful charm and wistful appeal. The background of this tale, against +Naples and Vesuvius, is painted with that vivid photography which +characterizes Heyse’s scenes in drama and fiction. Unlike Balzac or +Turgenieff, he wrote few words of description but “created atmosphere” +that was alive. Striking examples are the familiar tales, “Barbarossa,” +“At the Ghost Hour” and “The Dead Lake.” + +In the later _Novellen_, as well as the novels and plays of other +years, Heyse showed tendencies towards realism and less romanticism. +On the other hand, he never lost his urge for sensuous beauty, his +determination “to follow one’s bent” (“sich gehen zu lassen”). He +would not compel himself to irksome writing; he would yield to +impulse and mood. “The real sin is against nature” was his keynote, +reiterated from the short tale of “Reise nach dem Glück” (“Journey +After Happiness”) to the longer novels, _Kinder der Welt_ (_Children +of the World_) and _Im Paradiese_ (_In Paradise_). In philosophy he +has been called both fatalistic and epicurean. The conflicts between +restraint and self-surrender, especially in women, are germ-ideas +in such diverse writings as _L’Arrabiata_, _The Sabine Women_ (with +the heroine, Tullia) and _In Paradise_, with the forceful character +of Irene. In the dialogue, in _Children of the World_, between +Balder, the invalid-idealist and Franzel, the socialist-printer, the +author’s convictions are unfolded. Balder declares that life is full +of enjoyment to him, in spite of outward sufferings, because “he can +experience past and future,” because he can “conjure up” all the +periods of his life and find a totality, a completeness of enjoyment. +So the young baron in the novel, _In Paradise_, which has been +vehemently discussed for two generations, sins against his own nature +and his friend and, for a time, his “inner harmony” is destroyed but +after sufferings, portrayed with analytical skill, harmony is restored. +The city of Munich, in its varied aspects as related to society and +the arts, forms the “chorus” and subtle influence in this dramatic +story.[76] + +Heyse has written more than sixty dramas yet too few of them are +translated adequately into English; too often they have failed in stage +presentation. Many are historical; _The Sabine Women_ is erotic and +less consistent in development than _Hans Lange_, _Hadrian Colberg_, +and _Mary of Magdala_; the last play has been translated by William +Winter and by Lionel Vale. The old philologist, Zipfel, in _Colberg_, +may have been modeled, in part, from Heyse’s father. His speech, +relating the story of Leonidas and the Persian War, reaches a climax +of courage and self-sacrifice, with an application to later days of +struggle between the French and Germans. In Henning, the old servant in +_Hans Lange_, the author emphasizes his belief in the redemptive power +of nobler nature, in spite of incentives to revenge against the young +squire. + +There is unevenness of workmanship among the many _Novellen_. _Felice_, +the tale of the peasant girl who “listened to reason rather than the +call of passion,” is a vital expression of the author’s creed of +obedience to “impulse of the heart.” The later tales are more keen +and realistic than the photographic, romantic scenes laid in Italy +and Southern Germany. Heyse became more of an analyst of all kinds of +humanity, with their conflicting “impulses,” but he never acquiesced +in the scenes of squalor and moral slime that delighted some of his +contemporaries of the “naturalistic school.” By contrast, he was an +idealist with a strong vein of poetry. One of his best stories of +later period, _The Last Centaur_, expresses his revolt against the +materialistic spirit of his age. The creature who represents the age +of myths and imagination is driven back into the wood by the evil +ways and heartless gibes of the modern villages; in turn, he scorns +their opposition with “an exhalted humor.” It seems almost a modern +version of the old tale of _Baucis and Philemon_. In another tale, _The +Incurable_, the hero keeps faith in the ideal, in spite of the “rabble +in kid gloves.” _Die Blinden_ (_The Blind_) is an appealing story, with +colorful pictures of garden and ravens and flocks, and two children, +Clement and Marlene, waiting with tense emotion for the doctors to +restore their sight. The stern father, obsessed with his idea of +“duty,” is a strong character. “Nils mit der offenen Hand” is a fairy +tale that defies adequate translation into English but has situations +of dramatic skill, notably that of the gulls biting the rope at the +execution of Nils, and the brave deed of Stina, the princess who loves +Nils. + +Heyse was more successful in portraying women than men. He was long +called “the favorite of maidens.” He had insight to see fairly and to +balance well the traits of normal maidenhood--beauty, coyness, love +of prowess and adventure, ardent but concealed love until the lover +came to whom she would yield her “maidenly pride” (“Mädschenstoltz”). +There are traces of the influence of Goethe in certain passages in +_Kinder der Welt_, and such _Novellen_ as _The Broiderer of Treviso_, +_The Prodigal Son_, and _The Spell of Rothenburg_. In the last story, +there are comments upon art, interwoven with humor and irony as the +characters journey from Ausbach to Würzburg. Originality, however, +marks his drama and his fiction--that “ideal conception and fine +literary craftsmanship” which won for him the Nobel inscription. + +Mr. Georg Brandes believes that Heyse was, primarily, a pupil of +Eichendorf, as his poetry indicates.[77] The poems by Heyse are less +familiar than his prose, although he wrote both epics and lyrics. +“Salamander” ranks among his best long poems; “The Fury” and “The +Fairy Child” are examples of his lyrics. He delighted to translate--or +transpose--troubadour lays, folk songs from the Spanish and the +Italian. Like Mendelssohn, to whom he has been compared in temperament, +he lacked dynamic force but he was sensitive, artistic, and idealistic +in his basic character. + + +GERHART HAUPTMANN (1912) + + The prize of 1912 has been awarded: + + Hauptmann, Gerhart, born 1862: “principally for his rich, versatile, + and prominent activity in the realm of the drama.”[78] + +During the quarter century since the first Nobel prize was awarded, +it has happened, at intervals, that two representatives of the same +nation but different generations, are found on the lists in literature. +Thus Björnson and Hamsun, among Norwegian novelists, Echegaray +and Benavente in Spanish Drama, and Heyse and Hauptmann in German +literature of the imagination, are exponents of succeeding generations +of thought and expression. Heyse stood for the older, more poetic +and romantic forms; he decreed a philosophy of nobleness in man and +contentment in life. Gerhart Hauptmann, who received the prize only two +years later than Heyse, in 1912, was ranked by some critics with the +realists of the modern, restless type, whose criticism of society in +general was world-disturbing. After 1900 the fame of Heyse had declined +among the younger, more progressive writers. His award, at eighty +years, revived interest in his writings, especially the _Novellen_; +translations and articles about his personality were widely printed in +current journals. + +One of the authors whom Heyse had censured for his naturalism and +depressing dramas had been Gerhart Hauptmann. When the announcement +was made that the prize of 1912 was again given to a German novelist +and playwright, racial pride ran high but critics of other countries +asked, “How could idealism be perverted in meaning so that it would +apply to the author of _Before Dawn_, _Lonely Lives_, _The Weavers_ +and _Michael Kramer_?” Unfairly, the name of Hauptmann was linked +constantly with that of Sudermann by the most bitter malcontents with +this award. Such an attitude was biassed and unjust. That Hauptmann has +written some of the most photographic, haunting dramas of industrial +strife and social vices is true; but it is as true that he has produced +two, possibly three, of the really poetic, symbolic plays in modern +German literature--_The Assumption of Hannele_, _The Sunken Bell_, and +_Parsival_. + +[Illustration: _From an original etching by Hermann Struck. Reproduced +by permission of the artist and courtesy of the New York Public Library_ + +GERHART HAUPTMANN] + +There are two distinctive, but not wholly contradictory, personalities +in Hauptmann as he reveals himself to his readers. It was as author +of _The Sunken Bell_, especially, that he was chosen for the Nobel +prize; it had certain autobiographical suggestions of this conflict +between the material and the spiritual in the nature of its author. +Recognizing that he is often associated with Sudermann, the brilliant, +relentless novelist and dramatist, it is interesting to find these two +writers well differentiated by Otto Heller in _Studies in Modern German +Literature_ (Boston, 1905). He compares the nervous, sensitive mind of +Hauptmann, “possessed of a reproductive, feminine talent,” in contrast +with the masculine personality of Sudermann, less subtle, more virile +and coarse, with broader knowledge of life but lacking the intuitive +perceptions of Hauptmann. One may question some of these adjectives +used by Mr. Heller, but the general contrast is well phrased, +especially as applied to the poetic dramas by Hauptmann, like _The +Sunken Bell_, _And Pippa Dances_, and _Parsival_. + +Before Hauptmann conceived any of this work that entitles him to rank +among the idealists, he had written grim tragedies, similar in trend to +those by Ibsen, Zola, Tolstoy, Max Nordau, and Arno Holz. As realist +he has been censured as weak in plots and sometimes strained in his +social tenets: there are such defects in _The Beaver Coat_, _Rose +Bernd_, and _The Conflagration_. That he had a poetic instinct, a true +lyric quality, was acknowledged from occasional lines in such gloomy +plays as _Lonely Lives_, _Colleague Crampton_, and _The Weavers_. Among +the plays of industrial upheaval and suffering, _The Weavers_ has +tense feeling, with lines of irony and suppressed aspirations. It was +dedicated to Robert Hauptmann, father of the author, in affectionate +words that express the source of its inspiration and the allegiance +of Gerhart Hauptmann to his forefathers: “You, dear father, know what +feelings lead me to dedicate this work to you, and I am not called upon +to analyze them here. Your stories of my grandfather, who in his young +days sat at the loom, a poor weaver like those here depicted, contained +the germ of my drama. Whether it possesses the vigor of life or is +rotten at the core, it is the best ‘so poor a man as Hamlet is,’ can +offer.” + +While this grandfather had been a poor weaver, he met with better +fortunes in later life, and the father of Gerhart Hauptmann was owner +of three hotels. The boy was born at Salzbrunn, a seaside town in +Silesia, in 1862; thus he was thirty-two years younger than Heyse--a +full generation in time and standards of literature. His mother was +“one of the people.” The boy was inclined to study sculpture and he +was sent to art schools in Breslau, Jena, and in Italy. He was a slow +pupil; his brother, Carl, seemed almost the only person who expressed +faith in his gifts or future success. With his art studies he combined +agriculture and history. After a brief apprenticeship as modeler, he +decided that he would be an actor; he had a lisp that interfered with +the continuance of this histrionic hope. He married a woman of wealth +and moved to Berlin, in 1885, where he became identified with “The Free +Stage” movement and began to write plays. Byron had been one of his +earlier literary heroes; in _The Fate of the Children of Prometheus_, +he recorded some impressions of travel along the same route as _Childe +Harold’s Pilgrimage_. + +In 1889 “The Free Stage Society” was formed in Berlin; it was, in a +way, “an imitation of Antoine’s Free Theatre, organized two years +before,” says Barrett H. Clark in _A Study of the Modern Drama_.[79] +Among the founders were Otto Brahm, Maximilian Harden, Theodor Wolff +and others who wished to produce plays of varied types, especially +the work of naturalistic writers. Hauptmann came under the influences +of Bruno Wille, the socialist, and Arno Holz, the dramatist; certain +reactions from this companionship of minds may be traced in his plays +_Before Dawn_, _Colleague Crampton_, and _Florian Geyer_. Brahm was the +director of this Free Stage Society which, in 1894, after fulfilling +its mission for Germany, was merged into the Deutsches Theatre. Among +the plays by Hauptmann written under this stimulus, in addition to the +three mentioned above, were _The Festival of Peace_, _Lonely Lives_, +_The Weavers_, _The Beaver Coat_, and _The Assumption of Hannele_. +_Before Dawn_, written in the Silesian mountains and staged in Berlin, +in 1889, was a haunting tragedy with loose construction. The ribald +father and his low associates, and the daughter, who kills herself to +escape assault at their hands, combine to make a gripping, repulsive +story with certain dramatic possibilities that are not fulfilled. + +_The Weavers_ showed progress in technic and characterization of a +group. Here no single individual plays the leading part; the group +of weavers, the mob at the time of crisis, are the principal actors. +There are marked contrasts in setting between the home of the rich +capitalist and the poverty of the weavers, between the government’s +indifference and the industrial slavery of the victims of rapacity. One +of the most poignant passages is the monologue of old Ansorge, in Act +II; he cannot believe that the King will fail to help them, if word is +sent to him of their needs. When Jaeger assures him it is futile, that +the rich people are as “cunning as the devil,” his lament for the home +that must be sacrificed, where his father sat at the loom for more than +forty years, is pathetic and dramatic. + +_The Assumption of Hannele_, which appeared in 1893 and had a germ-idea +not unlike that of _Before Dawn_, created sharp discussion in Germany. +There was protest against its performance. The next year it was brought +to the United States, to be staged at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New +York. It was translated into English by William Archer and by Charles +Henry Meltzer. Reformers of many kinds denounced the play without a +hearing. They threatened the author, who had come to this country to +see the performance and to advise with his publisher, with arrest; the +same fate was to fall upon the translator, Charles Henry Meltzer, and +the actress who was to play the leading rôle. “Some representatives +of the press, with critics and authors, were bidden to a private +performance and the next day the newspapers, with a few impenitent +exceptions, published eulogies of _Hannele_! No one was arrested. And +the public performance took place.”[80] + +The American translator of both _The Assumption of Hannele_ and _The +Sunken Bell_, Mr. Charles Henry Meltzer, has described Hauptmann at +this period, in the Foreword to _The Sunken Bell_. He had expected to +meet an aggressive, self-satisfied man. On the contrary, he found one +who seemed like a student, with shy, boyish manners; he might have +been classified as a curate or a teacher; “A painful, introspective, +hunted earnestness was stamped upon his face--the face of a thinker, a +dreamer, a genius” (Foreword). _Hannele_ was not a success theatrically +in New York. _The Weavers_, at the Irving Place Theatre, attracted +somewhat more attention but the time was too indifferent to such plays +in America; one could not forecast the cordial reception for problem +plays and grim tragedies, with mystic elements, three decades later. + +It was eighteen years before the Swedish Academy gave world recognition +and honor to Hauptmann. A few men and women of literary insight--or +foresight--proclaimed a future for the creator of such a “dream-poem” +as _Hannele_. Gradually, readers became interested and stirred by this +strange play based upon the weird apparitions of the fevered brain +of the little waif, the poetic chorus of the angels, the comfort of +her mother and Pastor Gottwald, in contrast with the terrifying fear +of her father’s return, the stormy December evening in this mountain +almshouse, and the poems of “The Stranger” which cast a spell of +religious peace upon the reader, as the mystic, green light fell upon +the face of dying Hannele. This “dream-poem,” as Hauptmann called it, +won for him the Grillparzer prize in Germany. Two years later, after +the failure of _Florian Geyer_ to win plaudits of dramatic critics, +he wrote another play of symbolism and anapestic meters, combining +the realities of life with mystic allurements, and he called it “A +Fairy-Tale Play,” _Die versunkene Glocke_. His most severe critics were +convinced of his lyrical quality and dramatic power. + +The basic material for this play, _The Sunken Bell_, says its +translator, Mr. Meltzer, is found in Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology. Here +are the characters of the bell maker, his wife, the elfish spirit, +the schoolmaster and the vicar, and other factors interwoven with the +allegorical and mystical. Hauptmann visualized these characters with +consummate skill. Heinrich, the bell forger, who seeks the sun and a +new, marvellous chime of bells, Magda, his faithful wife eager to +free him from domestic toils, Rautendelein, the spirit of nature that +lures him away and stirs his soul to unfulfilled aspirations, and +Wittikin, the wise woman, the village priest and barber--all are alive +and convincing. The evasive and mystical element becomes a part of the +atmosphere of this “fairy-tale play”; the dramatic unities are well +maintained. + +What is the meaning of _The Sunken Bell_? Each reader may make his own +answer, for several are possible. It is as futile to analyze it, as +it is to destroy the fantasy and mystery of _Peter Pan_ or _The Blue +Bird_ or _Dear Brutus_. It is too subtle, too delicate to be treated by +rigid rules of criticism. However, Mr. Meltzer makes three pertinent +explanations; it may be a parable, the effort of all artists to reach +their ideals; it may be the effort of a reformer to remold society by +visionary ambitions; or Heinrich may embody any human being, striving +for the goal of truth and light. As Rautendelein symbolizes Nature +which offers freedom, so Wittikin expresses the eternal philosophy of +life, opposed to the conventional creeds of the world, like those of +the barber and the vicar, that are stumbling-blocks in the path of +lofty idealism. Heinrich fails to attain his ideal; he cannot weld the +pagan and Christian truths into one gospel, because he is _human_, with +limitations. He cannot stay on the pinnacle of the mountain, with its +mystic light and its new sun-bells, but he has not lost the influence +of these in his life. When the vicar rejoices that “the old Heinrich” +has returned, he answers: + + That man am I, and yet ... another man. + Open the windows--Light and God stream in.[81] + +This play proved a moderate success, especially when played by Sothern, +and has been repeated in academic circles, although it has not been +so popular in America as have been the plays by Ibsen, Rostand, and +Maeterlinck. It is one of the dramas that yields more of its beauty +and symbolic message to the reader than to the spectator. The play, +_Henry of Aue_, or _Der arme Heinrich_, which was called a fable +(1902) has sometimes been listed as a sequel to _The Sunken Bell_ +but they are unlike in setting and theme. Heinrich, the crusader, is +attacked with leprosy at the summit of his glory--a punishment for his +insolence to God. The healing begins when he purges his soul of despair +and hatred and begins to recognize “Beneficence” in Nature and Life. +There are well drawn characters, especially Heinrich, Hartmann von +Aue, Gottfried, Brigitta, and Ottegebe, the farmer’s daughter, whose +influence is strong in the “cure” for the hero. As dramatic art this +play is inferior to _Hannele_ or _The Sunken Bell_, but the reader’s +interest is sustained in the leading character, from his tragic +condition as an outcast, with a wooden clapper to warn people of his +approach, to the last scene of his redemption by love. + +During the years since he received the Nobel prize, Hauptmann has +written several plays and novels that continue to reveal his dual +traits as realist and idealist. The writings during the World War +have a tang of bitterness. Ludwig Lewisohn has edited eight volumes +of Hauptmann’s _Dramatic Works_ (Huebsch, New York, 1915-1925). The +introductions are informing and the translations are clear and strong. +In the series are included several Social and Domestic Plays as well +as “Symbolic and Legendary Dramas.” _Parsival_, a play translated by +Oakley Williams, has an ethical or religious tone with sympathetic +insight into humanity. “Heartache” was the name of Parsival’s mother; +said her creator, “I should hate to make anyone sad, but I believe we +might call every mother, at any rate, very, very, many mothers by this +name.”[82] There are symbolism and poetic sermonizing in this drama of +Parsival, “Bearer of Burdens”; his development from a care-free youth +to later responsibilities for world burdens is well portrayed. Traces +of irony and humor are found. The setting of the play, _And Pippa +Dances_, is picturesque, in the Silesian mountains. Wann is a grotesque +element and the tales of “the Wild Huntsman” are entertaining; Pippa, +the fair-haired daughter of the glass blower, is the persuasive +character. There is a lack of dramatic unity in certain scenes. +Translations of this play, and of _Elga_, have been made by Mary Harned +in _Poet Lore_ (Boston, 1906-1909). _And Pippa Dances_ is included in +Volume V of the plays edited by Mr. Lewisohn. + +Among interesting, intensive studies of Hauptmann as dramatist, is +the thesis by Walter H. P. Trumbaeur, on _Gerhart Hauptmann and John +Galsworthy; a Parallel_ (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, +1917).[83] The parallelism is traced, with occasional excess of effort, +between their careers, their themes, and certain plays like _Hannele_ +and _The Little Dream_, _Michael Kramer_ and _A Bit o’ Love_, and +_The Weavers_ and _Strife_. Both dramatists, says the critic, seek to +escape social bondage; both are vitally concerned in social problems; +both are realists temperamentally; both have a purpose to enlighten +rather than to delight; both see moral values and, also, _the irony of +things_. Hauptmann is more interested in characters while Galsworthy’s +main interest lies in the _relations_ between characters. In both +writers, there is a strain of idealism, seeking _truth_, material and +spiritual. Another interesting thesis is by Mary Ayres Quimby, on +_Nature Background in the Dramas of Gerhart Hauptmann_ (University of +Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1918). Among later plays _A Winter Ballad_ +and _The Festival Play_ register the fearless assault of this dramatist +upon vices and the exaltation of an idealism which is “union with +Nature.” + +The best work of Hauptmann in fiction has been attracting attention +and becoming familiar to English readers. _The Fool in Christ: +Emanuel Quint_ has been translated by Thomas Seltzer (Huebsch, 1911); +_Atlantis_, translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer (1912), and +_Phantom_ and _The Heretic of Soana_, both translated by Bayard Quincy +Morgan (1922-1923). The characterizations are forceful, with humor that +is sometimes broad and, again, subtle. Daring satire and exposition +of modern social problems are qualities that arrest the interest of +the reader and attest the brilliant mind of the writer, in the recent, +neo-romantic novel, _The Island of the Great Mother_, translated this +year by Willa and Edwin Muir (Huebsch). The leaders in this “Women’s +State” are delineated with shrewd, ironical skill. Phaon, the solitary +“masculine” on the island, passes through strange adventures before he +reaches maturity and finds his “ideal woman.” In his keen, illumining +analysis of Hauptmann’s poetic plays, _Hannele_ and _The Sunken Bell_, +in _A Study of the Modern Drama_ (New York, 1925), Barrett H. Clark +accepts the statement of other critics that these are not “well-made +plays,” but he finds in them the qualities which are high lights in +this writer’s masterpieces--“psychological interest, dramatic as +distinguished from purely lyrical poetry, a fairly well constructed +plot and an atmosphere of beauty.”[84] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[72] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1910. + +[73] _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg Brandes, New +York, 1924. + +[74] _Gesammelte Werke_: Vol. III, p. 300, translated in _Creative +Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ (by Georg Brandes) by Rasmus B. +Anderson, New York, 1924. By permission of Thomas Y. Crowell Co. + +[75] Introduction by Mary A. Frost to edition of _L’Arrabiata_, +published by Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1896. + +[76] An excellent study of Heyse is by Professor von Klenze in _German +Classics_ edited by Kuno Francke, German Publication Society. + +[77] _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg Brandes, New +York, 1924, Thomas Y. Crowell Co. + +[78] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1912. + +[79] D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1925. + +[80] _The Sunken Bell_: a Fairy Play in Five Acts by Gerhart Hauptmann, +freely rendered into English verse by Charles Henry Meltzer, New York, +1913, Foreword. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. + +[81] _The Sunken Bell_ by Gerhart Hauptmann, freely rendered into +English verse by Charles Henry Meltzer, New York, 1913, Act III. By +permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. + +[82] _Parsival_, a play by Gerhart Hauptmann, translated by Oakley +Williams, New York, 1915. By permission of The Macmillan Co. + +[83] By permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press. + +[84] P. 82. By permission of D. Appleton & Co. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MAETERLINCK--BELGIAN SYMBOLIST AND POET-PLAYWRIGHT (1911) + + + The prize of 1911 has been awarded: + + Maeterlinck, Maurice, born 1862: “because of his many-sided literary + activity and especially because of his dramatic creations which are + marked by wealth of fancy and poetic idealism that sometimes, in the + fairy play’s veiled form, reveals deep inspiration and, also, in a + mysterious way, appeals to the reader’s feeling and imagination.”[85] + +The first decade of the Nobel prizes was over and a new group of +candidates was coming into the literary limelight in 1911. There +was hopeful speculation that the award might go to either Russia or +America, the two larger countries that have not yet been included. +There was, however, a new type of poetry and drama, and a writer of +unique personality, that were attracting widespread interest--namely, +the mystical and symbolic plays by Maurice Maeterlinck. The +announcement that he was the winner for 1911 caused much pride to the +little kingdom of Belgium. Maeterlinck wrote most of his plays in +French so they gained readers more quickly than those of his Belgian +predecessors and contemporaries. _On the Scent_, the drama by Charles +Van Lerberghe, has been compared to Maeterlinck’s earlier work by +Barrett H. Clark in _A Study of the Modern Drama_.[86] Other Belgian +playwrights commended by Mr. Clark are Henri Maubel and Edmond Picard. + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co._ + +MAURICE MAETERLINCK] + +Maeterlinck was not quite fifty years old when the Nobel honor came to +him. He was born in Ghent, in 1862, of good ancestry. He recalled the +surroundings of his early life--the gardens and the sea and the ships +in sight. Especially was he interested in the Flemish peasants as they +sat, in quiet, stolid attitudes, in the doorways of their cottages +or by the smoking lamps. One group impressed his boyhood memory, as +he saw them on his way from school--seven toothless brothers and a +sister. Their lethargy and inert lives awakened him, in young manhood, +to psychological curiosity; their strange traditions and unreasoning +fears are reflected in some of his plays. His father was anxious to +have him study law, so he read and practised for a little time in +Ghent--long enough “to lose a case or two,” he said with humorous +reminiscence. He spent seven years at a Jesuit College, and showed a +mind of philosophical trend. He thought that in Paris he might come +into contact with men of literary rank and scholars. Villiers was +his especial influence there; another inspirational friend was Octave +Mirabeau to whom Maeterlinck dedicated his first published plays, +_Princess Maleine_ and _Pelléas and Mélisande_. In too extravagant +praise Mirabeau hailed Maeterlinck as “the Belgian Shakespeare” and +Maeterlinck became the victim of flattery, on one hand, and ridicule +on the other. He bore himself with calm dignity then as he has all his +life; his serene manner and low voice, in contrast with his muscular +physique, have been noted by many acquaintances. + +Before the death of his father, in 1889, he returned to Belgium and +lived there for seven years, continuing his studies of nature and +metaphysics, writing marionette plays, and more serious dramas, and +making translations from authors of other tongues, including English, +that left impressions upon his mind. He declared that the three +writers who exerted the strongest influence during these formative +years were Emerson, Novalis, and Ruysbroeck, the medieval mystic whose +writings were translated by Maeterlinck when he was a student at the +Jesuit College. To visitors from America he delights to show his worn +copy of Emerson. In his collected studies, _On Emerson and Other +Essays_, translated by Montrose J. Moses, he summarizes the Concord +philosopher’s thoughts about “the greatness of man’s spiritual nature, +about the forces of the soul.” In conclusion of his vital influence, +he writes: “Emerson has come to affirm simply this equal and secret +grandeur of our life. He has encompassed us with silence and with +wonder. He has placed a shaft of light beneath the feet of the workman +as he leaves the workshop. He has shown us all the powers of heaven and +earth, at the same time intent on sustaining the threshold on which +two neighbors speak of the rain that falls or the wind that blows. And +above these two passers-by who accost each other, he has made us see +the countenance of God who smiles with the countenance of God. He is +nearer than any other to our common life. He is the most attentive, +the most assiduous, the most honest, the most scrupulous, and probably +the most human of guides. He is the sage of commonplace days, and +commonplace days are, in sum, the substance of our being.”[87] + +In 1896 Maeterlinck returned to Paris and there he has made his home. +He refused to renounce his Belgian citizenship, however, that he might +become a member of the French Academy; during the war he did valiant +service in many ways for his native country. In his home town to-day, +and at Brussels, the visitor is told of Belgian pride in Maeterlinck; +the people say, “You know he has lived in Paris almost all his life but +he is a true patriot, just the same.” To the years in Belgium, between +1889 and 1896, belong such plays as _The Blind_, _The Intruder_, +_The Seven Princesses_, _Alladine and Palomides_ and _The Death of +Tintagiles_. It is a question whether he has surpassed, in dramatic +vigor combined with mystic beauty, that play of earlier period, +_Pelléas and Mélisande_. Like the story of _Paolo and Francesca_, which +it resembles in theme, it has an appealing quality both on the stage +and in the book. The tragic death of Mélisande, after the murder of her +lover and the birth of her daughter, reflects a high-light of dramatic +power. The lines are simple in diction, masterly in structure and +suggestion. + +One of the first translators of Maeterlinck into English was Richard +Hovey, the brilliant American poet who died in his prime. In two +decorative volumes, first issued in Chicago (Stone & Kimball) in +1894-1896, he interpreted, as well as translated, these earlier plays +already cited. The Introduction in the first volume is informing +for all students of modern drama. Mr. Hovey defined Symbolism, as +distinguished from Realism and Expressionism; he joined with the name +of Maeterlinck, such other exponents of Symbolism as Mallarmé, Gilbert +Parker, and Bliss Carman. Two traits distinguished the Belgian from +other symbolists of his day, according to this interpreter--“the +peculiarity of his technique, and the limitation of his emotional +range.” The use of reiteration is cited as a French characteristic +for effective emphasis. “The danger-border between the tragic and +the ridiculous” is a menace to Maeterlinck. More true of his earlier +than his later plays is another restriction noted by Mr. Hovey: “His +master-tone is always terror--terror, too, of one type--that of the +churchyard.... He is the poet of the sepulchre, like Poe--as masterly +in his own methods as Poe was in his, and destined, perhaps, to exert +the same wide influence.”[88] _Premonition_ plays a large part in the +plays of Maeterlinck from _The Blind_ and _Home_ to _Joyzelle_. + +In Paris, under the stimulus of literary associates and the comradeship +of Georgette Le Blanc (the actress who became his wife), Maeterlinck +wrote three plays that register his dramatic climax--_Joyzelle_, _Monna +Vanna_ (1903) and _The Blue Bird_ (1908). Probably, the last symbolic +drama was the primal cause of the Nobel award. The idealism, the +delicate fancy, the imaginative charm, the fascinating characters in +every scene, real or fantastic, and the pervasive message for every +age and land, give to this play a perennial appeal. As Maeterlinck +affirmed, this play, like others of the type, may lose some of its +“mystic transparency” and symbolism on the stage but it has been +alluring both as acted play and as a film. Why there should have been +“a sequel” to such a perfect, complete play as _The Blue Bird_ is a +question that has troubled many a critic. Resentment against _The +Betrothal_, the continuance of this fairy-tale play, however, gives way +before appreciation of its fine passages and strong message. At the +same time, the impression lingers that Tyltyl, like Peter Pan, should +“never have grown up.” Alexander Teixeira de Mattos has made a fine +translation of _The Betrothal_ and Edith Wynne Mattison was a charming +“Fairy Berylune,” when the play was given in New York. Here Maeterlinck +ventured almost too near the borderland between fantasy and farce, +especially in Act II, where the girls, who would marry Tyltyl, reveal +their lower natures. + +The versatility of Maeterlinck is evidenced by comparing such plays, +within ten years, as _Joyzelle_ and _The Blue Bird_, _Monna Vanna_ +and _Mary Magdalene_. _Joyzelle_ has elements of dramatic ecstasy +with a tragic undertone. Professor William Lyon Phelps has summarized +well the salient qualities of this play and its heroine in _Essays on +Modern Dramatists_ (New York, 1921). _Monna Vanna_, written especially +for Maeterlinck’s wife, is a rare blend of intense emotionalism and +convincing characters with a crisis which challenges the reason. +Giovanna, or Monna Vanna, wife of Guido Colonna, commander of the +garrison at Pisa, will remain as Maeterlinck’s most vital heroine. +Prinzivalle, general of the Florentines and her boyhood lover, is an +idealized hero for his age but convincing in his chivalry. Medieval +atmosphere and dramatic action accentuate the strong dialogue of this +play. Ten years later, in 1913, appeared _Mary Magdalene_. In his +Introduction, Maeterlinck relates, with some feeling, his effort to +win cordial response from Paul Heyse, who had written a play on the +same theme and with certain situations that the Belgian wished to +use. Meeting with a refusal, “none too courteous I regret to say,” +he decided to take his privilege of using Biblical words and his +previously conceived situation. He gives to Mary Magdalene a few +masterly lines; to Joseph of Arimathea, she says, “We save those whom +we love; we listen to them afterwards.” To the Roman Verus, who would +have her save Jesus by yielding herself to him, she replies: “I should +perhaps sin against all that he loves, to save what I love. I could +save him in spite of himself; but no longer in spite of myself. If I +bought his life at the price which you offer, all that he wished, all +that he loved, would be dead. I cannot plunge the flame into the mire +to save the lamp.”[89] + +The war left deep scars upon Maeterlinck’s spirit; they are reflected +in such essays and plays as _The Wrack of the Storm_, _Belgium at +War_, _The Burgomaster at Stilemonde_, _The Cloud that Lifted_, and +_The Power of the Dead_. Some of the essays, or chapters, in the +book first mentioned, deal with psychometry, the interest which is +expanded in other books like _The Great Secret_, _Our Eternity_, _The +Unknown Guest_, and _The Light Beyond_. That man is the product of +unseen forces, that he is molded by “hidden powers,” that humanity +and nature are always closely linked, were tenets that underlay such +books as _Treasure of the Humble_, _Life and Flowers_, and _The Life +of the Bee_. He became a beekeeper that he might study at first-hand +the traits of these workers and apply their analogy to humanity--much +as Dallas Lore Sharp has done more recently in _The Spirit of the +Hive_. In the beehives and the garden, Maeterlinck finds the same +complications and conflicts, the same “domination of the spirit of the +race,” as among men. In an essay in his earlier book, _Treasure of the +Humble_, he expressed a surety which has been verified with the passing +of the years: “A time may come perhaps--and many things herald its +approach--a time will come, perhaps, when our souls will know each +other without the intermediary of the senses.” + +To penetrate beyond the tangible things of life requires courage but +brings light to the spirit. In his plays, _Ariadne and Blue Beard_ +and _Sister Beatrice_, translated by Bernard Miall into English verse +(1916), and _The Miracle of Saint Anthony_, translated by Alexander +Teixeira de Mattos (1918), Maeterlinck has suggested the neglected but +magic “key” which may gain for us new adventures into “the prohibitions +of the tangible world.” The _premonition_ of his earlier plays has +become the _intuition_ which penetrates the unknown and supernatural. +Life has been symbolized by him as “a garden,” as an “inner temple,” as +analogous to the world of plants and “the swarm” of the bees. He seldom +reveals passionate feeling in his writings, but he exemplifies search +for truth, “care for moral stoic beauty.”[90] Intuition, as interpreted +by Bergson, he has expanded into the “raison mystique” by which one +may penetrate the unknown and the mystic. There are shades of gloom +and sadness in many of his plays; his characters are sometimes weak in +conflict with the forces about them; there are hints of fatalism in +plays like _The Intruder_, _The Death of Tintagiles_, and _Interior_, +but the keynote of Maeterlinck, in his maturity, has been that of +spiritual progress and mystic idealism. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[85] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1911. + +[86] New York, 1925, p. 161. + +[87] _On Emerson and Other Essays_ by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated +by Montrose J. Moses, New York, 1912. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. + +[88] _The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck_, translated by Richard Hovey, +Chicago, 1894-96. + +[89] _Mary Magdalene_ by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alexander +Teixeira de Mattos, New York, 1910, Act IV. By permission of Dodd, Mead +& Co. + +[90] _Some Modern Belgian Writers_ by Turquet Milnes, New York, 1917. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +RABINDRANATH TAGORE: BENGALESE MYSTIC-POET + + + The prize for the year 1913 has been awarded: + + Rabindranath Tagore, born 1861: “For reason of the inner depth and + the high aim revealed in his poetic writings; also for the brilliant + way in which he translates the beauty and freshness of his Oriental + thought into the accepted forms of Western _belles-lettres_.”[91] + +As a Bengalese, Rabindranath Tagore, to whom the Nobel prize was given +in 1913, is a British subject. Thus, for the second time, the honor +came to Great Britain through the writings of one whose formative +years, like those of Kipling, had been spent in India and whose typical +writings were associated with that country. On the contrary, the +words and thoughts of this mystic-poet are so exotic, sometimes so +unlocalized in form and spirit, that they belong to world literature, +rather than to a distinctive country. Possibly no other prize winner +has been so idealistic, so international in his appeal as this author +of _The Gardener_, _Sadhana_, and _The King of the Dark Chamber_. + +In his biographical study,[92] Ernest Rhys suggests that the award was +given to Tagore because of the enthusiasm of a Swedish Orientalist +for his writings before they were known in English. The year before +the award, however, Yeats had praised the poems of Tagore[93] and +other poet-critics had found him an inspirational influence. To the +winner, the announcement gave mingled gratitude and regret; the latter +he expressed in his sentence, “They have taken away my refuge.”[94] +His life had been so untouched by external struggles that he was, in +truth, “a child of Nature.” In _My Reminiscences_, he writes: “From +my earliest years I enjoyed a simple and intimate communion with +Nature. Each one of the cocoanut trees in our garden had for me a +distinct personality.... On opening my eyes every morning, the blithely +awakening world used to call me to join it like a playmate.”[95] + +Born in Calcutta, May 6, 1861, he came into a rare inheritance for +his later work as religious leader and writer. Like all children of +the higher social classes in India, he was environed from his birth +with poetic atmosphere. His blessing, as a newborn babe, was spoken +in verse; as he grew older many of his studies were in poetic form. +The family name was Thakur, Anglicized into Tagore; his father and +grandfathers had been identified with education and civil reforms. Raja +Sir Sourindra Mohun Tagore was founder of the Bengal Music School; +another, Abanindranath Tagore, was a noted painter and leader in +art-movements. His father might have been a Maharaja (a great king) but +he preferred to be Maharshi (a great sage), thus he was more closely +linked with the people than with nobility. He insisted upon paying +debts which his father, a prince, had left. He would have made himself +a pauper but the creditors refused to accept such sacrifices, so he had +a certain amount of property. He devoted himself to spiritual teachings +and traveled through India on such missions, gaining the respect of all +classes. + +[Illustration: + + _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._ + +RABINDRANATH TAGORE] + +The son who won this Nobel prize was the youngest in a family of seven +brothers and three sisters. He was lonely as a child, for his mother +died when he was young and he was often left with men-servants for +days. The return of his father marked the “gala-days”--_his_ presence +pervaded the whole house. Nature was the boy’s comrade and he would +often dig with a bamboo stick in the ground to find any possible +“mysteries.” Perfumes affected his senses and left vivid memories, as +he tells in his _Reminiscences_. The school life, after he was six +years, was a brief period of unhappiness. He was, perhaps, stubborn to +a degree and was ranked as the lowest in his class because he refused +to answer orally, but he thought out problems so well, in written work, +that he amazed his teachers and was given first place. The Oriental +Seminary, the Normal School, the Bengal Academy--all seemed to him +“prison-houses.” At home he studied, with a tutor, history, sciences, +and English literature. At first, he laughed, somewhat scornfully, at +English poetry because of the unusual sounds. + +An influence of this formative age was his nephew--older than he was, +Jyotiprokash, who read _Hamlet_ to the lad and urged him to write +verses and poetic imaginings. He saw a future for this boy with his +fancies and love of Nature. A teacher at the Normal School, also, +inspired him to write, asking him to complete lines or stanzas which +had been begun by another. Although his father was often separated from +the boy, he realized the child’s promise and his sensitive nature; +he gave him a vacation trip into the Himalayas, stopping at Bolpur, +the Peace Cottage, where his father often retired and where the son +was to have his own home later. In his “blue blank-book,” that he +carried always with him, were written poems suggested by scenery and +incidents of this trip. His father taught him botany and astronomy, as +well as English, Sanskrit, and Bengali. Back in Calcutta he “played +truant from school,” sometimes, and caused his older sister to write +in despair of the fulfillment of their hopes for him; that he would be +“the only unsuccessful man in the family.”[96] For a year he went to +London to study law but he was homesick and returned to Bengal. + +In his _Reminiscences_ at fifty, he recalled the years between sixteen +and twenty-three as those of unrest and “extreme wildness.” He was the +victim of the impulses of strong, young manhood; for a time he was an +epicure rather than a mystic. He delighted in silk robes and luscious +foods and romances in love. An expression of this time may be found +in the poem, “The Gleaming Vision of Youth,” in _The Gardener_. Other +reflections are in _Sandhya Sangit_ and _The Songs of Sunrise_, more +philosophical. Two poems, “The Eternity of Life” and “The Eternity +of Death,” indicate the period of transition from this time to the +years of religious meditation. At twenty-three he married happily; at +the request of his father, he went to oversee the family estate at +Shilaida, on the Ganges. Here, with intervals of travel, he remained +for seventeen years, living close to the people and to Nature, and +writing some of his tales and poems. One of his most famous love +poems, showing mingled sensuous and spiritual strains, is “The Beloved +at Noon and in the Morning.” + +In a house boat on the Padma he often spent hours of meditation, long +evenings of reverie, that were pictured in the background of his +idyllic song, “Golden Bengal.” He studied the poverty, trials, and +simple idealism of the people; he knew elementary medicine and cared +for the sick; he was saddened by the loss of rice crops in destructive +rains; he was determined that tenants should not suffer unduly from +tax-gatherers. He brought upon himself the jealous criticism of +British magistrates in the district and was called a revolutionary +and visionary disturber. He had already formulated his ideas of both +a small republic and the school at Bolpur when he was interrupted in +his plans by domestic sorrows. He journeyed to England and the United +States for recuperation and inspiration. + +The first grief was the death of his wife for whom he had a deep +love. Within a few months his daughter died of tuberculosis. Shortly +afterwards came another poignant sorrow in the loss of his youngest +son. With the serenity of a mind that recognizes Nature as mother and +friend, he turned toward more intimate relations with spiritual and +religious thoughts. These are revealed especially in _Gitanjali_, the +first book by which he became well known to English readers. It was +written in English with vigor and grace, with distinctive structure. +In 1912-13 he came to the United States, partly for a change of +scene, partly to add to his knowledge of industrial improvements and +agricultural equipment, that he might apply this information in his +school at Bolpur. His older son was with him, to learn methods of +harvesting. In his biographical study of Tagore, Basanta Koomar Roy[97] +tells interesting facts about the visit to this poet and discussion, +with him, of the possibilities that he might win the Nobel prize. He +was then at Urbana, Illinois, with his son. He was impressed with the +sunshine of our climate--“enchanted American days” he called them. He +liked the superior engineering and business abilities of Americans but +he deplored their lack of culture. He was urged to translate more of +his writings into English and was assured that, should he win the Nobel +prize, it would increase international brotherhood and world peace, as +well as raise India among the nations. Sceptical of the probability +he said, should it come to him, he would use the money to start an +industrial department in his school at Bolpur. + +Ten months later the award was made to Tagore. Some of his compatriots +were his most severe critics, complaining that he “dabbled” in too +many forms of literature. He admitted the charge but averred that +poetry represented “the deep truth” of his life. As a poet he has +revived the work, in kind, of the Vaishnava poets of the fifteenth and +sixteenth centuries, of mystic writers like the Upanishads who lived +between 2000 and 1000 B. C. He adapted the beauties of these poets to +modern interpretation. He was indebted, also, to Kabir, the mystic of +the fifteenth century, and to Ramprosad of Bengal, of the eighteenth. +In his form and spiritual progress he has shown marked originality, +following the work of Bengalese like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Bankim, +who had cleared away many obstacles of British domination over native +expression. + +Much has been written about the school at Bolpur to which, true to his +promise, he has devoted funds from his award. In his essays, _Sadhana, +or the Realization of Life_, are found several of the “student +addresses” made here; the war caused changed conditions and frustrated +some of the founder’s hopes. This school was started in 1902, approved +by his father, and with the goal, “To revive the spirit of our ancient +system of education ... to make the students feel that there is a +higher and a nobler thing in life than practical efficiency.” At first, +such a venture met with curiosity and some scorn. Parents sent here +unmanageable or backward boys. They had simple surroundings and lived +and slept outdoors; they sang chants as the birds begin their morning +songs; they had time for individual prayer and thought, clad in white +silk robes. They enjoyed games and long walks, simple food, no wine or +meat, music in the evening and plays, written by Rabindranath Tagore; +they wrote and illustrated school papers. There was self-government and +close, brotherly relations between boys and teachers. Their scholastic +work became satisfactory to the University at Calcutta. The boys were +happy, often refusing to go home for their vacations, unless compelled +to do so by their parents. + +In addition to his work as educator for boys, Rabindranath Tagore has +been a strong influence for more training and freedom for the women +of India. He believes that the life of woman, in a generic sense, +is more full and harmonious than that of man. He found the ideas of +both Hindu teachers and Christian missionaries were extreme, as he +viewed them, but he advocated education and broadened opportunities. +As an Oriental he has poetized the love of the home, the coming of +the woman at the end of the day, “with a pitcher of nectar,” to bring +comfort to the home. His poetic play, _Chitra_, much discussed and +puzzling in passages to a Western mind, is a frank exposition of +his philosophy regarding the sensuous and spiritual qualities of +women. Other expressions are in _The Home and the World_ (1919) and +_Personality_ (1917) and in plays like _Sanyas_, and _The King and the +Queen_ (in _Sacrifice and Other Plays_, New York, 1917). That he is a +lover of children, and able to interpret their thoughts and fancies +with unmatched beauty, is evident to all readers of Sir Rabindranath +Tagore’s writings (he was knighted in 1915). His own simplicity of +nature and life, his imagination in its purity and freedom, make him +an intimate comrade for boys and girls. The year after he received the +Nobel prize, the original, unrhymed poems, _The Crescent Moon_, were +translated, with effective illustrations in color. _Stray Birds_, with +frontispiece in color by Willy Pogany (1921), is another appealing and +typical book, but more mature and philosophical. + +The periods of childhood, from babyhood to school days and +letter-writing, are unfolded in _The Crescent Moon_ in delightful +pictures. Especially intuitive are “Baby’s World,” “Paper Boats,” “The +Little Big Man,” and “The First Jasmines.” Humor enlivens many of +these fancies and questions of the child, as in “Twelve O’Clock” and +“Authorship”; the latter raises a query--_why_ the mother allows father +to waste “heaps of paper” without a protest, while a single sheet, +taken for a paper boat, may bring a remonstrance to the child. There +is emotional beauty and Oriental philosophy in “The Beginning.” “Where +have I come from?” asks the child, and the mother: + + She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to + her breast,-- + You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.... + In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother + you have lived. + In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been + nursed for ages.... + As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all + have become mine.[98] + +During the twelve years since the Nobel award, Tagore has translated +several of his earlier poems, plays and tales and has written _My +Reminiscences_, one of the most illumining autobiographies of the +last decade. He has expanded his ideas on government, education and +religion in books like _Nationalism_ and _Creative Unity_. He has +written _Prayers for Mother India_--that she may be raised from her +chronic want to a place of influence and success. He has urged united +action by the people of England and those of India to bring about this +material union. He has said, “One section of the human race cannot +be permanently strong by depriving another section of its inherent +rights.” Taking as his text that mooted line from Kipling, + + Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet-- + +Tagore said, at a banquet in London: “I have learned that, though our +tongues are different and our habits dissimilar, at the bottom of our +hearts we are one.... East is East and West is West--God forbid that it +should be otherwise--but the twain must meet in amity, peace and mutual +understanding; their meeting will be all the more fruitful because of +their differences; it must lead both to holy wedlock before the common +altar of Humanity.” + +In the sympathetic, analytical study of _Mahatma Gandhi_ by Romain +Rolland, there are some excellent sentences of comparison of these +two religious leaders of modern India. “Tagore looked upon Gandhi as +a saint,” says M. Rolland, and he deplored his political activities, +especially his non-coöperation doctrine. Tagore seeks and finds harmony +in coöperation. He wrote, “My prayer is that India may represent the +coöperation of all the peoples of the world. For India, unity is truth, +and division evil.” In summary, the French writer says, “To my mind +Gandhi is as universal as Tagore, but in a different way. Gandhi is a +universalist through his religious feeling; Tagore is intellectually +universal. While venerating him, (Gandhi) we understand and approve +Tagore.”[99] In _Creative Unity_, Tagore has included an essay upon +“The Nation” in which he stresses “the fight” to-day between “the +living spirit of the people” and the methods of organizing nations. + +If one were to prophesy which type of Sir Rabindranath Tagore’s +writings will survive among many peoples, the chances are in favor of +his mystical prose-poems and his national songs. The latter have kept +alive the love of home-country and faith in India. They are sung by +boatmen on the Ganges, by the peasants in the fields, by students and +groups at all kinds of festivals and conferences. These songs are of +two kinds; one is a wistful idealization of the “Motherland,” with +graphic pictures of scenery, homes, and religion; the second type is +the “Song of Consecration,” of sacrifice and valor, exampled in “Follow +the Gleam,” to which many young Nationalists have marched and died. +Bitterness is absent from nearly every line by this poet-patriot; there +is spiritual excitation, strong appeal to love of home and broader +idealism. It has been said that contradiction is evident between some +of these national songs and the broad humanism of many other writings, +notably those in the _Gitanjali_. Those who know the man personally, +and who are familiar with the tenets of Hindu philosophy which he +embodies, as well as the spiritual ideals of the Upanishads, do not +find it difficult to reconcile the two creeds, as he has united them in +his “Ode to the Earth” and some of the essays in _Sadhana_. + +While it is gratifying to note that Rabindranath Tagore, as prize +winner, found incentive to write more idealistic literature, yet it is +evident that he never has surpassed the earlier books of distinctive +quality, books that maintained the classic traditions of his native +literature but gave them new form and significance, as _The Gardener_, +_The Post Office_, _King of the Dark Chamber_, _Gitanjali_, and _The +Elder Sister_. When he was in the United States he read, at colleges +and other places, many passages from _The Gardener_ and _Gitanjali_. +The two books have similar tone and melody; both are difficult to +translate into adequate English because much of the mysticism is lost +in concrete words--the same is true of his plays when they are staged +without sustaining the “illusion” of the Oriental atmosphere. In native +language the rhythm and music surpass and interpret the words; the +swaying movement accompanies many odes and invocations. A song that may +be chanted with the music of the flute, and thus appreciated, is one of +the mystical lyrics beginning: + + I am restless, I am athirst for far-away things, + My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirts of the dim + distance. + O Great Beyond, O the keen call of my flute! + I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings, that I am bound in + this spot, evermore.[100] + +_Gora_, a so-called “novel” by Rabindranath Tagore, has been issued +this current year. It tells the story of a Hindu youth, a Brahmin, +whose full name is Gourmohan Babu. He cherishes a large-souled +ambition to “unify” India but he cannot break down the barriers of his +religious fanaticism enough to consent to the marriage of his younger +brother, Binoy Babu, to a girl of a lower Brahmin caste. The romantic +interest vibrates from the love affairs of Gora to that of his brother. +The chief merit of the book is not its art as fiction, for that is +negative, but the graphic presentation of religious tenets and native +customs. The author seems, at times, to be seriously concerned about +the development of his hero and the more tolerant brother; in other +places, he introduces an element of whimsical humor and kindly irony +as in the unexpected sequel of Gora’s parentage. Poetry and essays or +short tales, rather than fiction of long-sustained plot, are the forms +of writing best adapted to his gifts. + +As _The Gardener_ represents the youth of Rabindranath Tagore, with +normal desires fused with spiritual longings, so _Gitanjali_ is the +expression of the mature philosopher-poet, still responsive emotionally +but seeking for “joy eternal.” He has preserved for world literature, +the philosophy and poetry of earlier teachers like Chaitanya Deva, +usually called “Nimäi,” the Hindu poet, who lived near Bolpur, the home +of Tagore. In addition to these revivals of the earlier tenets and +aspirations in poetry, Rabindranath Tagore has become an international +humanist. He has never lost his joy in Nature and in solitude but +he has walked forward into the vision of a united brotherhood and a +spiritual commonwealth. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[91] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1913. + +[92] _Rabindranath Tagore_ by Ernest Rhys, New York, 1915. + +[93] _Gitanjali_, with Introduction by W. B. Yeats, London and New +York, 1913. + +[94] _Rabindranath Tagore: a Biographical Study_ by Ernest Rhys, New +York, 1915, Preface, xiv. By permission of the Macmillan Co. + +[95] _My Reminiscences_ by Rabindranath Tagore, New York, 1917, p. 225. +By permission of the Macmillan Co. + +[96] _Rabindranath Tagore_ by Basanta Koomar Roy, New York, 1915, p. 52. + +[97] _Ibid._, pp. 189-193. + +[98] _The Crescent Moon: Child-Poems_ by Rabindranath Tagore, +translated from the original Bengali by the author, New York, 1913, +1916. By permission of the Macmillan Co. + +[99] _Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One with the Universal Being_, +by Romain Rolland, translated by Catherine D. Groth, New York, 1924. By +permission of the Century Co. + +[100] _Gitanjali: Song-Offerings_ by Rabindranath Tagore, New York, +1916. By permission of the Macmillan Co. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ROMAIN ROLLAND AND _JEAN-CHRISTOPHE_ + + + In 1916 the prize of 1915 has been awarded: + + Rolland, Romain, born 1866: “as homage to the exalted idealism in + his authorship, and also to the sympathy and truth with which he has + drawn different types of people.”[101] + +There was no prize money awarded in literature for 1914. The +announcement that the winner for 1915 was Romain Rolland, author of +_Jean-Christophe_, was generally approved. Here was an instance when +a single book had focussed attention of readers and the judges; this +masterpiece, which had appeared in France at intervals from 1904 to +1912, had been translated into many languages and much discussed. It +was a mirror of the conditions of society, especially in France and +Germany at the junction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; it +was an exhaustive, vital life story of a musician with aspirations, +struggles, loves, defeats, revolts, friendships, and tragic, but +triumphant, end. In the biography of Rolland by Stefan Zweig, emphasis +is laid upon the period of nearly fifty years of the author’s life +as a quiet scholar and musician, “an artist working without serious +interruption or serious recognition,” and then a sudden, disturbing +publicity which followed in the wake of this novel.[102] + +Clamecy, a little town of the Morvan on the Nivernais canal, was the +birthplace of Romain Rolland, January 29, 1866. His father was a +notary; his mother was daughter of a magistrate; she was musical and +religious, devoted to her son and the younger child, Madelaine. Their +happy home life is reflected in pages of the section, “Antoinette,” +in _Jean-Christophe_. When he was young, Romain Rolland showed taste +for music and his mother taught him and told him stories about great +musicians. When his school days ended at the Communal College in his +native town, his father, with rare self-sacrifice, gave up his law +practice in Clamecy and went to Paris, becoming clerk in a bank that +the boy might be educated in the best schools. After attendance at +the Lycée Louis-le-Grand until he was twenty, he entered the Ecole +Normale Supérieure where he specialized in history. Gabriel Monod was +a teacher of surpassing influence over the minds and characters of his +students. Rolland was enthusiastic about Tolstoy, both as reformer +and writer.[103] For Shakespeare he had ardent admiration, especially +for the historical plays and sonnets. + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of Henry Holt & Co._ + +ROMAIN ROLLAND] + +Another friend of these tentative years was Paul Claudel, the author of +books with mystical tendencies upon the history of Catholicism. Already +Rolland had expressed a fugitive, recurrent wish to write a romance, +“the history of a single-hearted artist who bruises himself against +the rocks of life.” Such was the norm of _Jean-Christophe_. He was +surprised, and not wholly pleased, when he was told that he had won a +traveling scholarship from the Normal School and could go to the French +School of Archeology and History at Rome. For two years he stayed in +this city, making contacts with some of the vital influences of his +life, notably the friendship with Fräulein Malwida von Meysenburg; +she was many years his senior but still alert and inspiring. She knew +intimately scores of statesmen, writers, and artists, as references +in her book, _Mémoires d’une idéaliste_, testify. She took a profound +interest in this young Frenchman with his musical gifts and visionary +hopes. In his essay, “To the Undying Antigone,” Rolland speaks of his +gratitude to two women--his mother and Fräulein von Meysenburg. With +the latter he went to visit Wagner at Bayreuth and increased his +musical enthusiasm and knowledge. One day, as he was walking on the +Janiculum, the germ-idea and plan of his epic novel, _Jean-Christophe_, +formed in his mind but its writing was delayed for many years. + +Back in Paris as lecturer at the Normal School, and at the Sorbonne, +he determined to attack indifference to the fine arts. His thesis +had a title of arresting words for that time, “The Origins of the +Modern Lyrical Drama.” While in Rome he had written a few plays that +were not made public, _Orsino_, _Caligula_, and _Niobe_. He was eager +to increase interest in music at the Normal School and elsewhere. +He attended musical festivals at Bonn and Strasburg and began that +series of biographies published later as _Musicians of Former Days_, +_Musicians of Today_, _Beethoven_, _Handel_, and other volumes. He +married the daughter of Michael Bréal, the philologist, at whose home +he met noted men of letters, science, and art. His wife was cultured +and sympathetic with his aspirations to extend knowledge of music and +art among the people. He rebelled against educational restrictions, +as well as political reactions; in such moods he wrote plays such as +_Danton_, _Fourteenth of July_, _Triumph of Reason_, and _Saint Louis_, +a heroic legend. He urged popularizing of the theatre and lamented the +dominance of “the aristocratic theatre.” Some of the articles which he +wrote at different times on this theme have been translated by Barrett +H. Clark as _The People’s Theatre_ (New York, 1918). He looked to the +theatre as beneficial to the people in three ways: “(1) as a source of +joy; (2) as a source of energy; (3) as a source of guiding light to the +intelligence.” + +Before Rolland had really “found himself” in literature, the Dreyfus +case racked his sensitive soul. In almost all his later writings there +are references, direct or implied, to this “welter of feeling” which +divided families and shattered friendships. At the time of the trial +he wrote, “He who can see injustice without trying to combat it, +is neither entirely an artist nor entirely a man.”[104] He wrote a +dramatic parable, _Les Loups_ (_Wolves_) under the pseudonym of “Saint +Just,” in which he lifted “the problem from the realm of time into +that of the eternal.” As the political strife became more personal +and bitter, Rolland retired from public attention and devoted himself +to writing lives of artists like _Michael Angelo_ and _Millet_ and +musicians. He contributed the first chapters of _Jean-Christophe_ to +the literary magazine, _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, known to students +_only_ for many years. In two small rooms on the fifth floor of a +Parisian house, above the boulevard Montparnasse, Rolland wrote and +read, seeing a few friends, taking walks, and playing the piano for +recreation. Outwardly, he was serene; inwardly, he was seething with +indignation at the falsities and hypocrisy of life, at the disdain +shown for spiritual values, at “the world dying of asphyxia in its +prudent and vile egoism,” as he expressed it in _Jean-Christophe_. + +Slowly, without any aids of publicity, the real value of +_Jean-Christophe_ became apparent to critics and discriminating +readers, as the last volumes appeared in the magazine. German +journalists called attention to its unique merits. Paul Seippel, +the Swiss writer, related the life and earlier work of Rolland. In +June, 1913, Rolland was given the Grand Prix of the French Academy. +Translation of _Jean-Christophe_ was made into English by Gilbert +Cannan and critics awakened. The same year Rolland republished some of +the plays written in his student days, under the title, _Les tragedies +de la foi_; by examples of such heroes as “Saint Louis” and “Aërt,” he +would inspire the people of the twentieth century to a new idealism. +His play, _Wolves_, has been staged in Yiddish in New York, has been +translated into English by Barrett H. Clark, and has been performed at +the University of Minnesota. + +In his epic story of a musician and his associates, Rolland was a +preacher of aspiration and harmony to the whole world, in spite of +localized atmosphere. He recalled the words of Goethe, “National +literature now means very little; the epoch of world literature is +at hand”; and he urged, “Let us make Goethe’s prophecy a living +reality.”[105] His hero was to have a long, circuitous journey in his +search for expression of his aspirations; he was to meet many kinds +of people and races; he was to have some of the tragic experiences +of musicians of real life, Beethoven, Wagner, and Hugo Wolf; he was +to keep aloft the banner of idealism, of faith in humanity. Like the +author, he was to be victimized by the hard realities of life and +disillusionments. The book was to have many themes and varied notes but +was to be blended, at the last, into a perfect symphony. The preludes +were written in 1895-1897; the last chords were played in October, +1912. Parts were written in France and Italy; others, in Switzerland +and England. + +No work of fiction of such prodigious length, totaling more than 1550 +pages, in the three-volume edition translated by Gilbert Cannan, could +be written without many lapses, many passages of uneven merit. Some +of the characters are vital and haunting to the memory, like Olivier, +Grazia, Antoinette, Sabine, Jacqueline, Emmanuel, Dr. Braun, besides +the hero; others flit across the pages and are forgotten. Condensation +of some chapters would add to their effectiveness but the author’s +discursive, intuitive comments make a valuable asset of the book. It +may be reread in parts with enjoyment, just as a musical program, for +an evening, has selected movements in a fugue or a symphony. When it +was suggested to Rolland that he seemed to show enmity towards Germany, +by some of the reproaches of her false standards, his reply was, “I +am not in the least an enemy of Germany”; in proof, he cited that he +had rated soundly as many faults in France, in Volume V, as he had in +Germany in Volume IV. He contended that Germany had creative energy and +moral vigor but that she was “sick” in this twentieth century, just +as France was diseased and needed to be purged to restore her noble +qualities. Heroic souls are found in both countries but the people, as +a whole, fail to interpret each other aright. Unless such understanding +can be established in _friendship_, war will sunder the nations--such +was the prophetic message of _Jean-Christophe_ which was fulfilled two +years later. His book was intended as a “common heritage for all” of +Europe. + +Time will fix the exact status of this epic novel and its lasting +influence upon international thought. It may be classified as allegory, +romance, psychological study, or idealistic vision; it has sincerity, +inspiration, and imaginative intensity. The author’s statement that +he always thought of the life of his hero as analogous to a river, is +significant; he sustains the imagery from the first Dawn, Morning, +Youth, and Revolt in Germany to the very end of the journey “across the +border,” to the final act where “Saint Christopher” hears the roar of +the torrent but also, the “tranquil voice of the Child” as the Angelus +sounds forth The New Day. Gilbert Cannan has compared the phases of +life, explored by _Jean-Christophe_, to the tortuous channel of an +uncharted river. His judgment that this novel is “the first great book +of the twentieth century,” is more stable than the prophecy of other +critics that would leave out the word “first.” It has many passages +of artistic perfection, like “Antoinette,” “The House,” and “The New +Dawn.” With emotional fervor the author, in the closing volume, speaks +his message to the future, apostrophizing the young men; “You men of +today, march over us, trample us under your feet, and press onward. Be +ye greater and happier than we.... Life is a succession of deaths and +resurrections. We must die, Christophe, to be born again.”[106] + +And since the award, what has Romain Rolland written? _Colas +Breugnon_, the tale of a Burgundian artist, translated in 1919 by +Katherine Miller, is less intense, much more free and diverting than +his long novel. It was a work of relaxation for the author during +the summer months in Switzerland, 1913. He had recently visited his +birth town and modeled the hero, in part, from a resident, a wood +carver there, “an artist of the vanished type.” He has his struggles +and defeats but he never loses his optimism. The next year the +war began, with its devastating, soul-searing effects upon Romain +Rolland. He had seen its black shadow and had forewarned the people +in _Jean-Christophe_ but the actual conflict overwhelmed his spirit. +Like Olivier, in his story (whom he resembles in many ways), he had +feared such a war from boyhood; it had been “a nightmare to him; it +had poisoned his childhood days.” He was at Vevey, on Lake Geneva, +when the war broke out and he decided to stay there; he longed for +France but he could not fight without blighting his soul. He would +suffer as a pacifist, loving his country, rather than yield to hate. +He did secretarial work for the Red Cross and assisted in welfare +measures of many kinds. When the Nobel prize money came, he gave it “to +the mitigation of the miseries of Europe.”[107] He wrote some of the +papers that were collected in _Above the Battle_; his friendly letter +to Hauptmann, appealing for amity, and the German’s reply, are given +here. In spite of the aggressive tone of the German’s note, Rolland +refused to believe that the ideals of human brotherhood had been +destroyed; they were suffering eclipse temporarily but would relive +in “The New Dawn.” To Woodrow Wilson, in the later months of the war, +Rolland made an appeal to “be the arbiter of the free peoples.” On +the day of the armistice he issued a manifesto, _L’Humanité_, a call +to “brain workers,” comrades all through the world, to reconstruct +a fraternal union. The play, _The Montespan_, translated by Helena +van Brugh de Kay, is called a “sequel to _Above the Battle_.” He had +written, during these days of seclusion and thought, his study and +appreciation of _Mahatma Gandhi: the Man Who Became One with the +Universal Being_ (translated by Catherine D. Groth), which has been +quoted in the previous chapter upon Rabindranath Tagore. + +As relaxation, he wrote _Liluli_, a comedy with the “goddess of +illusion” as its heroine. There are some lines of satire and some +of burlesque, as the combatants wrestle. It was symbolic of France +during the war years, as _he_ viewed his country, scorning Truth and +heaping up ruins of past greatness. This has been illustrated with +thirty-two wood engravings by Frans Masereel (New York, 1920). While +Rolland was exercising his ironical wit upon this picture of war, he +was writing _Clerambault: the Story of an Independent Spirit during +the War_, a sad portrayal of a pacifist. This has been translated by +Katherine Miller (New York, 1921). It is a dissertation more than +a story, a presentation of the author’s own sentiments, with much +philosophy about life and conflicts. The man, Clerambault, passes +through strange spiritual experiences. The early scenes of his rural +home life, peaceful and happy, are contrasted with his fanaticism when +he reaches Paris and urges his son, Maxime, to enter the army; then +come reactions, after the death of the son and his own probings of +conscience. The author interprets the tale as a tragedy for the man +and his wife, but a triumph of freedom for his soul. There are many +autobiographical touches in this psychological story. + +In 1922 there appeared in Paris, from the pen of Rolland, the first +volumes of _L’âme enchantée_ which is now appearing in English +version, by Ben Ray Redman, as _Annette and Sylvie: The Prelude_ and +a second volume, _Summer_, translated by Eleanor Stimson and Van Wyck +Brooks. In his Foreword the author tells his readers that they are +starting with him upon a new journey which will not be so long as +that of _Jean-Christophe_ but will include more than one stage. He +asks suspension of judgment until the tale is finished, quoting the +old adage, “La fin loue la vie, et le soir le jour.” He expresses the +domination that his characters gain over him--Jean, Colas, Annette--so +that he becomes no more “than the secretary of their thoughts.” No +thesis nor theory is in this story but it is another life history, +struggling to find Truth, to reach harmony of spirit amid many kinds +of buffetings and joys. Two girls, half sisters, Annette and Sylvie, +afford him scope for sharp antitheses in character-drawing. Annette +is a girl of fine health and brain, educated at the Sorbonne. She had +adored her father but, because of some letters which she found after +his death, she realizes his infidelities to her mother and understands +his secretive smiles. She locates her half sister who never bore his +name--Sylvie, pretty, uneducated, capricious, gay, unmoral. The deep +passions of Annette, her reserves and independence, her repugnance to +any “possessiveness” on the part of her lover, Roger Brissot, and his +family, lead to a scene of erotic realism. This is followed by words of +the author’s own creed, his Search for Truth: “I am not one of those +who fear the fatigues of the road.... I am seeking.... I am convinced +that it is possible to love one’s child, loyally perform one’s domestic +task, and still keep enough of oneself, as one ought to--for the most +essential thing ... one’s soul.”[108] The second volume reveals the +material and spiritual conflicts of Annette, as a mother and teacher, +and Sylvie’s experiences in marriage and business. + +In his latest book, as in his earlier plays and fiction, M. Rolland +has revealed that idealism which, in his philosophy, means harmony and +freedom, of both aspiration and action. His form is often careless +and sometimes crude; but it has high lights of great beauty and +true art. In his own life he has waged many battles that have left +scars upon his sensitive temperament and fine soul. They have never +shattered his spiritual creed, his faith in humanity. He has written +ardently in behalf of international friendship and intellectual unity. +In the future he may be ranked as a prophet as well as a scholar, +a seer as well as a writer. Amid the turmoil of his generation he +has been a force, making for peace; he has held high the banner of +world-fellowship and sounded the challenge against racial jealousies. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1915. + +[102] _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig, +translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, New York, 1921. By permission of +Thomas Seltzer. + +[103] See his _Tolstoy_, translated by Bernard Miall, London and New +York, 1911. + +[104] _Century Magazine_, August, 1913, article on Rolland by Alvan V. +Sanborn. + +[105] _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig, +translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, New York, 1915. By permission of +Thomas Seltzer. + +[106] _Jean-Christophe_ by Romain Rolland, translated by Gilbert +Cannan, Vol. III, p. 348, New York and London, 1913. By permission of +Henry Holt & Co. + +[107] _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig, New York, +1921, p. 270. + +[108] _Annette and Sylvie: Being Volume One of the Soul Enchanted_ by +Romain Rolland, translated from the French by Ben Ray Redman, New York, +1925. By permission of Henry Holt & Co. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A GROUP OF WINNERS--NOVELISTS AND POETS + + HEIDENSTAM OF SWEDEN (1916) + PONTOPPIDAN AND GJELLERUP OF DENMARK (1917) + CARL SPITTELER OF SWITZERLAND (1919) + + + The prize of 1916 has been awarded: + + Heidenstam, Verner von, born 1859: “in recognition of his + significance as spokesman of a new epoch in our literature.”[109] + +“Sweden’s Laureate” is the name often given to Verner von Heidenstam +who won the prize in 1916. By public, competitive vote of his +countrymen he had been chosen as the most popular poet before he was +accorded this world honor. He is less familiar, by translation in +English, than his compatriot who preceded him in recognition by the +Swedish Academy, Selma Lagerlöf. His plays, novels, and poems are +gaining new appreciation through the translations in recent years by +Charles Wharton Stork, Arthur J. Chater, and Karoline M. Knudsen. He +was born of aristocratic family at the manor house of Olshammar in +Närke, July 6, 1859. As a boy he was never strong; he was shy and +loved to read, especially poetry and hero stories. When he was in +early adolescence, he developed such a condition that lung-disease was +feared and he was sent to the south of Europe for a milder climate. +For eight years he was away from Sweden, spending time in Italy, +Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. Some of his ancestors had +been in governmental positions in the Orient; he was lured by the +picturesqueness and freedom of these lands. + +His first ambition was to be a painter; for a time he was a student +of Gêrome in Paris. Critics have often recognized this quality of +the painter’s skill in his poems, in selection of objects and colors +and in reproduction of life in Paris, in Italian carnival days, and +at Damascus. While Heidenstam was still a young man, he fell in love +with a Swiss girl of the people and married her. At an old castle of +Brunegg, estranged for a time from his parents, he lived in seclusion, +seeing few people except his wife and August Strindberg who had become +deeply interested in the young poet. Already he had decided that +literature, not art, must be his profession. He wrote many poems that +were gathered later as _Pilgrimages and Wander-Years_. In _Thoughts in +Loneliness_ one may read expressions of his moods of longing for home, +mingled with resentment against injustice. “Childhood Scenes” is an +example, beginning: + + I’ve longed for home these eight long years, I know. + I long in sleep as well as through the day! + I long for home! + I seek where’er I go, not men-folk, but the fields + Where I would stray, + The stones where as a child I used to play.[110] + +There are sundry references to his mother; a line that will arouse +sympathy reads, + + She prayed my life might have a worthy goal![111] + +In the poem, “Fame,” he is melancholy and laments: + + You seek for fame but I would choose another + And greater blessing: + So to be forgotten + That none should hear my name; + No, not my mother.[112] + +The death of his father, in 1887, called him back to Sweden; here, +with intervals of travel, has been his residence through his mature +life. A volume of his _Poems_, following those of _Pilgrimages and +Wander-Years_, increased his reputation among his countrymen. They +were of diverse types; some were emotional like “A Man’s Last Word to a +Woman”; others were scenic and dramatic narratives, like “The Forest of +Tiveden” and “The Burial of Gustaf Fröding.” The lyrical quality in his +songs adapts them to community singing; his “Sweden” is most familiar +and has been compared by Mr. Stork to John Masefield’s “August, 1914.” +The vibrant quality is strong; the patriotism is appealing: + + Oh, Sweden, Sweden, Sweden, native Land! + Our earthly home, the haven of our longing! + The cow-bells ring where heroes used to stand, + Whose deeds are song, but still with hand in hand + To swear the eternal troth thy sons are thronging! + +In later poems, as well as prose essays, Heidenstam has shown ardent +liberalism and a spirit of brotherhood. “Singers in the Steeple” +emphasizes + + Not joy to the rich, to the poor men care; + Our toil and our pleasure alike we share. + +_Poems_, published in 1902, contain appeals for democracy and universal +suffrage, in the verses, “Fellow-Citizens,” and other lines. Like +his predecessor, Björnson, he is both national and universal in his +idealism. With honor and love he has written the elegy of Björnson as +“Norway’s Father,” with the closing lines: + + Yet the soul of the people deep within + Still breathes the eternal brother-song, + We stand and gaze at the sunset long + And grieve for thee as one of our kin.[113] + +Verner von Heidenstam must be included on the lists of novelists as +well as poets. In 1889 he published his first romance, _Endymion_, a +new treatment of an old theme. With a painter’s glow of fancy he sought +to depict, through a love story of moderate interest, the atmosphere of +the East, when it is clouded by restraints of Western civilization. He +had registered rebellion against the growth of naturalism in fiction: +in _Pepita’s Wedding_ (1890) he urged idealism, and search for inner +truth. The term, “imaginative realist,” which has been used to classify +Heidenstam, is especially applicable to the fantastic, emotional +tale, _Hans Alienus_ (1892). As writer of fiction, however, the name +of Heidenstam will always be linked most closely with _The Charles +Men_ (_Karolinern_)--stories of Charles XII and his wars--a series of +prose-poems depicting Swedish heroism, written with fervor and artistic +finish. A translation by Charles Wharton Stork, with introduction +by Fredrik Böök, has been added to the _Scandinavian Classics_ +(American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York, 1920). Among the best of +several dramatic tales are “French Mons,” “The Fortified House,” and +“Captured.” Like Rolland, Heidenstam is a pacifist yet he has written +a vigorous tribute to this “King who lived his whole life in the field +and died in a trench,” the man who was a genius in war but, like his +heroic men, gentle as well as brave, with lofty visions. + +Other romances followed this major work, _The Charles Men_--tales +and folklore, sagas and modern applications in _Saint George and the +Dragon_, _Saint Briggitta’s Pilgrimage_, and _Forest Murmurs_. In +fiction and essays the writer has attacked naturalism that “lets the +cellar air escape through the house.” Some of his significant essays +are collected as _Classicism and Teutonism_. It is unfortunate that +so few of his works are adequately rendered into English. He has +contributed to liberal and reform journals. In 1900, marrying for a +third time, he bought a home near Vadstena, the place of his childhood, +and with his wife, a woman of broad culture and social charm, he has +exerted a wide influence upon Swedish life. In 1912 he was elected a +member of the Swedish Academy which honored itself, as well as him, by +the award of the Nobel prize four years later, after his candidacy had +been urged throughout Scandinavia and elsewhere. + +Among his verses had been delightful “Cradle Songs”; he had written, +also, juvenile stories. He was asked by the Swedish educational +authorities to write a Reader for school use. He calls this “a work of +love.” Without the originality and glamour of Miss Lagerlöf’s books, +_The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_ and its sequel, this Reader contains +some absorbing tales of heroism, and poems and scenes of descriptive +merit. For older youths and adults he has embodied poetic legends with +modern teachings in two plays, translated into English by Karoline M. +Knudsen, _The Soothsayer_ and _The Birth of God_ (Boston, 1919, 1920). +The first play is located upon “An Arcadian Plain” with Apollo, the +Soothsayer, the Fates, and Erigone, wife of the Soothsayer, as leading +characters. There are sentences of subtle humor about “a man in love,” +and more serious counsel of Apollo, with modern meaning: + + Son of dust! + Thou didst try to serve two gods; therefore, thy power became thy + doom! + +_The Birth of God_ is founded upon Egyptian mythology, with symbolism +in the words of Dyskolus, an Ancient, to a modern merchant, A Stranger, +comparing “the altar-fire and the sacred hymn,” when “divine destiny +had not been forgotten,” with humanity of less pure standards. + +_The Tree of the Folkungs_, translated from the Swedish into English +by Arthur J. Chater (New York, 1925), is a romance, mingling history, +sagas, fantasy, pageantry, action, and modern interpretation of some +of the deeds and ideals of the Vikings. It has been compared to _Peer +Gynt_. Two distinctive parts of the book, welded into one story, are +“Folke Filbyter” and “The Bellbo Heritage.” The elemental character +that gives title to the first part is Earl Birger, sacrificing to all +gods in adversity and pulling down all altars in days of prosperity. +He opposes the dynasty of the Folkungs but he ends his days in squalor +and piteous craving for the love denied him by his sons and grandsons, +a lesson to moderns of the futility of material miserliness. The second +section of the strange, impressive tale deals with the fortunes of the +Folkungs two hundred years later and the conflict between two brothers +and their differing standards, King Valdemar and Junker Magnus. The +latter considers his older brother a “good-hearted, sunny-eyed fool,” +compared with his own masterful ways. This legendary romance-pageant +has scenes of dramatic power--the battle between Valdemar and Magnus, +the love of the minstrel for an outcast maiden, and many customs of +historical and imaginative past. It is an elaborate, well constructed +revelation of Heidenstam’s imaginative insight and vigor, united with +his skill in interpreting the _past_, in history and sagas, to the +problems of the _present hour_. He is, in truth, “the herald of a new +epoch in our literature.” + + +HENRIK PONTOPPIDAN + + The prize of 1917 has been awarded one half to: + + Pontoppidan, Henrik, born 1857: “for his profuse descriptions of + Danish life of today.”[114] + +The Swedish Academy had sprung several surprises in the awards of +the first fifteen years but they surpassed all previous records, in +1917, when the honor was divided between Henrik Pontoppidan and Karl +Gjellerup of Denmark. Danish writers, in general, were less known by +translation in France, Italy, England, and America than their neighbors +of Sweden and Norway. Outstanding exceptions are Hans Christian +Andersen and Georg Brandes. The Danish Royal Theatre was recognized +in contemporary life as an educational force; such playwrights of +earlier and later days as Holberg, Oehlenschlager, and Edward Brandes +had been studied by dramatic scholars in many countries. Bergström’s +play, _Karen Borneman_, translated by Edwin Björkman, is discussed by +Barrett H. Clark in _A Study of the Modern Drama_.[115] Another play +by Bergström, _Thora van Deken_ (1915) was a dramatization of a novel +by Pontoppidan. + +An interesting note, regarding the reaction to this joint award +of 1917, is found in the _American-Scandinavian Review_.[116] The +first comment is upon the ages of the recipients--both were past +sixty--“another veteran medal” for writers whose productivity is +past. In addition, says the editorial writer, “Neither has mastering +genius that would entitle him to the prize.” Pontoppidan is the better +known; he stands for progress that will not forget tradition. Vilhelm +Anderson, literary historian, has said of Pontoppidan’s writings, +“Modern Denmark could be reconstructed entire from his books.” The +family had scholars, among them a bishop, Eric Pontoppidan, of the +seventeenth century, who published the oldest Danish grammar in Latin. + +Henrik Pontoppidan was born at Frederica in Jutland, in 1857. His +grandfather and father had been clergymen. While he was a schoolboy the +family moved to Randers where he remained until he went to Copenhagen, +to the Polytechnic Institute, to study engineering. He made a visit +to Switzerland where he had his first love affair and wrote his early +sketches. In 1881, in Denmark, appeared _Clipped Wings_, a collection +of stories of which “The Church Ship” excels in imagination and +dramatic concentration, the mystical mingling with the realistic. In +1891 he lived for a time at Ostby but a few years later, after his +second marriage, he moved to Copenhagen where he has been a noted +leader in educational and literary life, a friend of Brandes and an +adviser of the younger dramatists and novelists. He has been called +an imitator of Ibsen; an echo of some of the melancholic effects of +_Brand_ and _Ghosts_ may be seen in Pontoppidan’s tales but he is +distinctive in his methods of portrayal. He is criticized sometimes as +narrow and localized, without spiritual vision. + +A trilogy of novels (1892-1916) presents scenes and characters in +the rural life of Denmark. The first book, _The Promised Land_, is +depressing, strongly realistic in its hero, Emanuel, called by some +critics “a prose Brand.” It is a tale of disillusionment, a revelation +of the struggle of idealists in this world of material ambitions. It +is written with care--three years was devoted to it--and the note of +sincerity is marked. The second novel, _Lucky Peter_, to which the +author devoted four years, is partly subjective. The hero, like his +author, was son of a clergyman and studied as an engineer. _The Kingdom +of the Dead_, written during the war years, reflects such influences +with a stronger tone of patriotism than is dominant in the author’s +other tales; it is loosely constructed but it gives clear glimpses +of Copenhagen, both in city streets and outlying districts. _The +Apothecary’s Daughter_ has been translated by G. Nielsen (London, 1890). + +In an English edition of Pontoppidan’s stories, _The Promised Land_ +and _Emanuel, or Children of the Soil_, translated by Mrs. Edgar +Lucas, with several illustrations by Nelly Erichsen (London, 1896), +the illustrator explains the author’s purpose in the chapters of _The +Evolution of the Danish Peasant_. He has chosen a disturbing period in +educational and religious life after the Danish peasant was transformed +from a slave to a citizen, by the act of 1849. Political parties, “The +National-Liberal” and “Friends of the Peasants,” were formed and high +schools were established. Then, by a revision of 1866, the liberties of +the peasants were again threatened and despair settled on their minds. +In two remote villages, Veilby and Skibberup, prototypes of the places +where the author had lived and taught for a time and knew the people, +he has portrayed their customs and revolts in a vivid, descriptive +style. + +In some of his short stories, like “Eagle’s Flight” and “Mimosas,” +Pontoppidan reveals himself at his best as narrator. He is deeply +interested in educational progress for his people; he urges freedom +from hypocrisy and weak compromises. Idealist in his aspirations and +photographer of Danish life in town and country, he is an author whose +writings will be appreciated as the years add to their interpretations +and translations. + + +KARL GJELLERUP + + The prize of 1917 has been awarded, one half to: + + Gjellerup, Karl, born 1857, died October 13, 1919: “for his + many-sided, rich, and inspired writing with high ideals.”[117] + +Like Pontoppidan, Karl Adolf Gjellerup was the son of a clergyman. He +was born at Roholte in 1857. To please his father he studied for the +ministry, and took examinations in theology, but he was not willing to +accept any parish. He was deeply interested in “modernist doctrines” +and became a disciple of Darwin, Georg Brandes, and Spencer. Later he +recanted from some of these teachings and became less radical and more +historical in his studies. He delighted in the Eddas and had a natural +flair for literature even before he became a professional writer. He +has lived much of his life in Dresden, where his popularity seems to be +greater than in his home country. Said the commentator on Gjellerup, in +the _American-Scandinavian Review_,[118] after the prize was divided +between him and Pontoppidan in 1917, “his appointment has been +received with marked coolness in Scandinavia.” + +As a writer, Gjellerup has traveled far afield for his subjects. He +has written books on art and music; he is an ardent Wagnerian and +has studied many aspects of this influence, as his writings testify. +He has tried his hand at plays in which he sought to reconcile the +modern spirit of Christianity with the Greek love of beauty. It is not +a new theme--nor is there much distinction in his treatment. He has +translated, in modern Danish language, several tales of the Eddas and +old Norse sagas. By translation into English he is known especially by +two stories, _The Pilgrim Kamanita_ and _Minna_; other novels, typical +of his style are _An Idealist_ and _Pastor Mons_, with satirical and +photographic passages. + +_The Pilgrim Kamanita_, translated by John E. Logie (London and New +York, 1912), is subtitled _A Legendary Romance_. It is laid on the +banks of the Gunga, when Lord Buddha visits the “City of Five Hills”; +there is graphic description of locusts and coral trees and blossoms +in the grove of Krishna. The text is from Byron’s _Don Juan_--“This +narrative is not meant for narration”--an indication of its imaginative +quality. The opening pages are brilliant with colorful passages, +“billowy clouds of purest gold,” blossoming gardens and terraces and “a +long line of rocky eminences, rivaling in colour the topaz, amethyst, +and the opal, were resolved into an enamel of incomparable beauty at +this City of the Five Hills.” Kamanita was the son of a merchant in +the land of Avanti, among the mountains. He was rich, well educated, +could sing and draw, could color crystals and “tell whence any jewel +came.” At twenty he was sent on an embassy of business to King Udena in +Kosambi. Here began his “Pilgrimage” in love and memories that form the +trail of this story. Mysticism, and esoteric philosophy are _mixed_, +rather than _blended_, with realism. + +_Minna_, the novel translated into English by C. L. Nielsen (London, +1913), has Dresden for its background. There are songs from Wagner and +music by Chopin and Beethoven, interspersed with the tale of Minna +and her tragic life, after her _mariage de convenance_. In a note, +dated Dresden, August, 1912, the author confesses, “I have often +felt a homesick feeling for the Danish _sund_.” He adds that he has +been reading Thomas Moore’s _Irish Melodies_, bequeathed to him by +his deceased friend, Harald Fenger. This love story, in manuscript +form, was entrusted to Gjellerup before Fenger died in London, after +he had lost “Minna” and developed a fatal illness of the chest. With +these memories before him, he narrates this romance of the hero who +comes into the country, near the Elbe and, crossing the ferry, meets +a pretty governess and Lisbeth, whose chief distinction was that +of wearing a veil, “at a time when veils are out of fashion.” The +character of Minna is revealed largely through letters with emotional +tones. There are disillusionments as well as emotional joys in this +tale, justifying the motto chosen from Moore’s line, “To live with them +is far less sweet than to remember them.” + +The Nobel honor to Gjellerup was appreciated much in Germany because +his influence upon art and literature had been strong, especially +in Dresden. He interpreted, to Danish readers, certain factors in +German life and philosophy. While his Danish compatriots recognize +his scholarly work, his literary insight, and subtle wit, they do not +rank him as a genius nor essentially as a Danish writer. Some leaders +in that country would have much preferred to be represented, among +Nobel prize winners, by a versatile, world-honored writer like Georg +Brandes, or a playwright like Bergström (before his death in 1914) +or a poet like Drachmann (before his death in 1908) or a writer of +localized scenes but broad vision like J. V. Jensen. There are elements +of poetic insight and analytical skill in the romances by Gjellerup; +and translation into English will increase appreciation of his literary +influence. + + +CARL SPITTELER + + The prize of 1919 has been awarded: + + Spitteler, Carl, Switzerland, born 1845; died 1925; “having + especially in mind his mighty epic _Olympischen Frühling_.”[119] + +Another small country and an author, little known outside France and +Germany and his own land, was the choice for the award of 1919--Carl +Spitteler of Switzerland. There was no prize given in 1918, in +literature. In spite of the fact that Nietzsche had written of +Spitteler as “perhaps the most subtle æsthetic writer of Germany,”[120] +his name was not familiar to international readers. Born in Liestal, +a canton of Basel in 1845, he was nearly seventy-five years old. His +work had been idealistic in trend, thus fulfilling one condition of the +prize; his epic for which he was honored had been completed fourteen +years before--_Olympian Spring_. He had suffered from disappointments +and lack of appreciation by critics until his later years. He had never +lost his zeal for literature and desire to promulgate ideals of truth +and freedom. + +He was fortunate in opportunities for travel and study as a youth. +His father was in the post-office service at Basel and later was +Secretary of the Treasury at Berne. While at Basel University, Carl +Spitteler came under two influences of lasting results on his life +and writing--Wilhelm Wackernagel, the German philologist, and Jacob +Burckhardt, the historian of the Italian Renaissance. He loved +music, especially Beethoven, and showed taste for art. Later he went +to the Universities of Zürich and Heidelberg, to study history and +jurisprudence. He took courses in theology--thinking he might be a +minister--but decided wisely that his bent was towards philosophy +and literature. His ambition was to become an epic poet; he essayed +to write _John of Abyssinia_, _Atlantis_, _Theseus and Heracles_ but +he pushed aside these pioneer efforts as puerile. For eight years +he was tutor in Russia, in the family of a Russian general. While +there, he was writing slowly the poem that he had planned in student +days at Heidelberg, _Prometheus and Epimetheus_. It was issued first +under the pseudonym of “Felix Tandem” and ten years later with his +own signature.[121] His Prometheus is “an exalted soul,” suffering +rather than proving untrue to his spiritual ideals. By contrast is his +brother, Epimetheus, receiving Pandora’s gifts and material honors but +losing his soul until he recalls Prometheus from exile, to drive away +“the powers of evil.” There is depth of philosophy mingled with modern +ideas in this poem of grace and beauty. He was charged with imitating +Nietzsche’s _Also sprach Zarathustra_ so he wrote a pamphlet, _My +Relations with Nietzsche_, emphasizing his ignorance of the latter’s +work when he wrote his poem on Prometheus. + +He continued his teaching in Switzerland at Berne and at Neuenstadt, +spending thirty hours a week in the classroom; then he did some +journalistic work at Basel. In 1883 he married and soon after +published _Extramundana_, in which he told, in verse, cosmic myths of +the history of creation. A collection of his lyrics, _Butterflies_ +(_Schmetterlinge_), excel in rhythm and love of nature. In 1891, he +inherited a small fortune; from that time he was relieved from routine +teaching and writing; he went to Lucerne where the scenic beauty +increased his literary inspiration. He experimented in various forms--a +series of essays known as _Laughing Truth_ (_Lachende Wahrheiten_), +with irony and earnestness mingled, a prose idyl, _Gustav_, and +a juvenile _Mädchenfeinde_, translated by Mme. la Vicomtesse Le +Roquette-Buisson as _Two Little Misogynists_ (New York, 1922). There +are clever illustrations by A. Helene Carter. This is an amusing tale, +perhaps more appealing to adults than to children readers by its +subtle wit and modern educational problems; but it is entertaining +and lively. Two boys, aged ten and nine, Gerold and Hänsli, “fine, +healthy boys,” are returning to a military school after a vacation. +If only some great event might save them--a flood or earthquake or +epidemic among the teachers, or “a declaration of war.” Their feelings +towards the girls, Theresa and Marianelli, are natural and amusing. +There is irony in the warning given to Gerold lest “he should think +for himself,” a process that is both popular and unpatriotic, as many +people consider. + +After the publication of some poems as _Balladen_ in 1905, Carl +Spitteler wrote _Imago_, which he declared was “an explanation of +Prometheus and Epimetheus--what really happened.” “Prometheus shows +what a poet made of it.”[122] Autobiography, as in many of his books, +reappears in the young man, Victor, the poet in _Imago_; in the +discussion or analysis of Frau Doktor and German womanhood, the author +has shown the _provincial_ attitude, in many conditions of life outside +Germany as well as within. + +_Der olympische Frühling_, which is known by translation as _Olympian +Spring_, was the mature expression of Spitteler as poet. It appeared +from the press at intervals from 1900 to 1905. It has five parts, +with more than thirty cantos, written in iambic couplets. Four lines, +describing Apollo, from _Olympian Spring_, have been freely translated +by Thekla E. Hodge: + + Threefold is thy royal crown of fame: + Thou hast conceived it: that shows thy lofty aim. + Thou hast dared it: that tells the hero’s valor. + Thou hast achieved it: from thousands thou art chosen. + +The poem mingles classic mythology with satire, contemporary problems, +humor and idealism. With high praise, it has been called “The Divine +Comedy of the New Century.”[123] It has been compared to Shelley’s +_Prometheus Unbound_, to Keats’ _Endymion_ and other epical poems. +Ananke, ruler of the universe, is a vitalized character from mythology +who imprisons the gods in Erebus. He permits them to start on a journey +to visit the distant world while Moira, daughter of Ananke, gives +springtime and peace to the world. Their joy is turned into discord and +suffering as they come near;-- + + And from the yawning cleft the echoes’ thunder rolled, + For aye no spot on earth but witnessed grief untold. + +The blue flower of Memory has a vital part to play. The angels chant +their message of hope, their assurance of “a coming morn” when cocks +will crow at the advent of a Saviour, and Part I ends in a climax of +idealism. The “Winning of Hera,” Queen of the Amazons, and the choice +of Herakles as wanderer on the earth, suffering any tortures for the +sake of Truth, are larger themes in Part II. Marguerite Münsterberg has +made an interpretive translation of parts of this epic poem which won +for its author the Nobel prize.[124] There is drollery and satire, as +in the plan of Aphrodite to lead mankind away like children, and the +frustration by rain and burlesque features. The poetic climaxes are +vigorous and the complete work is masterly and epical. + +Spitteler is often ranked as representative of German literature in +Switzerland, in company with Gottfried Keller, Conrad Meyer, author +of _The Monk’s Marriage_, and Joseph Victor Widman, author of _Saints +and Beasts_. He showed influences, in prose and verse, of Goethe and +Schiller but he had originality in his approach to his subject and +its treatment. He endured much loneliness of spirit from neglect of +his literary messages and from political bitterness. During the war +he urged the neutrality of German Switzerland and so lost favor with +the people who had stimulated and encouraged him; in return he gained +popularity in France and was given the greeting of the French Academy +when he was seventy years old. His poems vary much in tones and +measures; there are musical _Bell Songs_ (_Glockenlieder_, 1906) and +light, joyful _Butterflies_ of earlier years. In the later _Ballads_ +he often struck a note against commercialism, with a ring of robust +idealism in behalf of spiritual values, and denunciation of those +“Prudes to the bone”-- + + For what of old our fathers virtues made + They’ve chaffered for in markets or betrayed. + +The death of Carl Spitteler at Lucerne, in the current year, +revived interest in his life and writings, and evoked recognition +of his influence towards revival of the best in classicism, and his +aspirations for freedom and sincerity in modern life and letters. + +Among many tributes to the work of this poet a few may be cited from +the monograph, compiled by Eugen Diederichs Verlag in Jena, translated +for this book by Thekla E. Hodge. Michael Georg Conrad, often compared +with Spitteler as a leading exponent of modern German literature, +writes: “The marked superiority of Spitteler over his contemporaries +in the realm of _belles-lettres_ is due to his brilliant creative +genius, and the rare combination of deep feeling and keen humor.” +Widman, another author-critic, writes of _Prometheus_: “In this poem +he blends poetry with religion (mythology) and thought (philosophy). +Unfortunately, we can draw no comparison for nothing like it is found +in literature.” The same critic is enthusiastic about the poems, +_Butterflies_ (_Schmetterlinge_). “The fate of these wondrous little +creatures, whose transformation has ever brought to the human mind a +mysterious and touching symbolism, was wrought by the poet’s touch into +scenes of dramatic tragedy, and irresistible charm.” + +Several commentators have stressed the qualities of vigor and +grotesqueness, combined with idyllic poetry in the epics and lyrics by +Spitteler. One of the most sincere tributes was that of Romain Rolland, +written soon after he had received the Nobel prize and before that +honor was given to Carl Spitteler. He regrets that it was not bestowed +upon the Swiss writer and adds: “Spitteler is to my mind the greatest +European poet, the only one today who approaches the most famous names +of the past.... Strange blindness of the world to pass by the living +flame of the genius of the most inspired poet without even divining its +splendour.” The award of 1919 was the fulfilment of Rolland’s desire. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[109] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1916. + +[110] _Sweden’s Laureate: Selected Poems_ translated by Charles Wharton +Stork, New Haven, 1919. By permission of Yale University Press. + +[111] _Ibid._, “Mother.” + +[112] By permission of Yale University Press. + +[113] _Sweden’s Laureate: Selected Poems_, translated by Charles +Wharton Stork, New Haven, 1919. By permission of Yale University Press. + +[114] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1917. + +[115] New York, 1925, p. 27. + +[116] Vol. VI, p. 109. + +[117] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1917. + +[118] Vol. VI, 1918. + +[119] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1918. + +[120] _Carl Spitteler_; monograph compiled by Eugen Diederichs Verlag +in Jena. + +[121] _Studies from Ten Literatures_ by Ernest Boyd, New York, 1925. + +[122] _The German Classics_, edited by Kuno Francke, New York, 1914, +_Carl Spitteler: Life and Works_, Vol. XIV, pp. 493-515. + +[123] _Contemporary Review_, January, 1920, article by J. G. Robertson. + +[124] _The German Classics_, edited by Kuno Francke, New York, 1914, +Vol. XIV, p. 515. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +KNUT HAMSUN AND HIS NOVELS OF NORWEGIAN LIFE + + + The prize of 1920 has been awarded: + + Hamsun, Knut, Norway, born 1859: “for his monumental work, _The + Growth of the Soil_.”[125] + +It was characteristic of a type of journalism in the United States +that the announcement of the Nobel award in literature for 1920, to +Knut Hamsun, should have been featured in a digest of news thus: “The +Horse-Car Conductor Who Wins the Nobel Prize.” A passing incident +in the life of this author--a few months of service on street cars +in Chicago--but they loom large in minds that cherish trivialities. +His works in fiction and drama, more than twenty-five in number, +have been translated into a score of dialects; he is an outstanding +and unique figure in the literary life of to-day; his development of +personality and fame vies in interest with the challenging quality of +his writings. Few authors have been so self-revelatory as he has been +in his plays and novels. Except for statistical facts and side lights, +to be found in other sources, one can make almost a complete picture +of his background, his early struggles and revolts, his innate poetry +and growing idealism, by reading in succession _Hunger_, _Mysteries_, +_Pan_, and _Munken Vendt_, followed by _Dreamers_, _Benoni_, _Children +of the Age_, and _Growth of the Soil_. + +Although Knut Hamsun’s parents were of peasant stock, the boy, born +August 4, 1860, at Lom, in Gudbrandsdalen, in eastern Norway, inherited +strains of artistic craftsmanship. His grandfather was a worker in +metals (sometimes called a blacksmith) but fortunes were low and, when +the lad was four years old, the family moved from the Gudbrandsdalen +mountain valley to the Lofoden Islands, Nordland. Here, amid wild, +awesome scenery and simple fisherfolk with sordid tasks, the youth +grew to young manhood. For a time he lived with an uncle who was a +preacher, of the state church; he was a severe man. In his short +story, “A Spook,” Hamsun recalls those days with their floggings and +work and hours of escape to the cemetery or the woods.[126] Before he +could satisfy his cravings for an education, he was apprenticed to a +shoemaker in Bodö, in Nordland. He managed to get his first writings +published; in 1878 appeared the serious poem, that showed appreciation +of the glowing colors and wild aspects of nature, _Meeting Again_, +and the story _Björger_ with the pseudonym, Knud Pederson Hamsund. +While there were interesting bits of autobiography, this initial +fiction was imitative of Björnson and has not been revived by its +author among his books. + +[Illustration: + + _By courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc._ + +KNUT HAMSUN] + +Restless and unwilling to spend his days at Bodö as a shoemaker, he +worked for a short while as coal heaver, and later as road-maker and +school-teacher and sheriff’s assistant. Then, like so many Scandinavian +youths, he decided to emigrate to America. Some of these earlier +experiences are recalled in his novels, _A Wanderer Plays on Muted +Strings_ and _Under the Autumn Star_ (in the English edition united as +_Wanderers_). In the United States he drifted from one occupation to +another and covered a wide range of pursuits as street-car conductor, +farm laborer, clerk in grocery store and lecturer. He cherished +hopes of literary chances in this country but the lack of them, and +the misfortunes that came upon him, made him bitter for a time, +in retrospect. Those who recalled him on the Halstead street-car +line in Chicago, and later on a cable line, affirmed that he had “a +perpetual stare into the horizon,” that he was “out-at-elbows” and +had small volumes of classic poets sticking out of his pockets.[127] +They add that he would forget to ring the bell for passengers or +would fall over their feet in his reverie. One is skeptical of such +detailed memories of famous men. In the summer of 1885, he was back in +Christiania, doing some journalistic work and lecturing. Hanna Arstrup +Larsen in her authoritative study of Knut Hamsun[128] says that he had +been at the University of Christiania, before he went to America; but +that he found he was a misfit and went back to his “old life on the +road.”[129] + +In 1886, says Professor Josef Wiehr,[130] he returned to the United +States as correspondent for _Current Events_ (_Verdens Gang_) but +he was obliged to undertake manual work to get a living wage; for a +time he was with a Russian fishing vessel off the Newfoundland banks. +For about a year he was secretary to Kristoffer Janson, a Norwegian +clergyman in Minneapolis; he was then twenty-eight years old, and had +been working on a farm in North Dakota. He wanted a chance to lecture +in Minneapolis on literary topics but his ambitions were unrealized +and he left America with some bitter feelings and the manuscript +of his satirical book, _The Spiritual Life of Modern America_ (or +_Intellectual Life in Modern America_), sometimes entitled _Of American +Culture_. In a copy of this book, owned by Edwin Björkman, Hamsun +wrote an inscription, dated 1905, thus, “A youthful work. It has ceased +to represent my opinion of America.”[131] He scoffs at “American +patriotism, engendered by means of tinfifes”; he asserts, “There is +an enormous gap in American liberty, a chasm which is kept open by +the thick-headed democracy”; he finds no cultural life but coarse +materialism and “prudishness” and “self-satisfied ignorance.”[132] +The book justifies a critic’s comment that it is “a masterpiece of +distorted criticism.”[133] His short story, “Woman’s Victory,” in the +collection, _Struggling Life_, is based on his experiences in Chicago; +in the Preface, he tells of his life as car conductor. “Zacchæus,” in +the collection, _Brushwood_ (1903), is reminiscent of the days upon the +North Dakota farm. + +In Copenhagen, on his return from America, he enlisted the interest +of Edward Brandes, then editor of a daily newspaper there. Through +his influence, place was found for the manuscript of _Hunger Sult_ in +a Copenhagen magazine, _New Soil_, in 1888, to appear anonymously; +two years later it came out as a book, with the author’s name on the +title-page. It was immature and subjective, but it gripped readers +everywhere by its sincerity and whimsicality. Miss Larsen makes a true +criticism of this book when she says it is “without beginning and end +and without a plot but it has a series of climaxes.” Antithetical +to such passages of poetic and dramatic power there are pages of +naturalism that cause a revulsion of emotion and seem to some readers +an insult to taste. It is absolutely true and relentless; perhaps, +as Professor Wiehr suggests, “By the production of this work, Hamsun +sought to free his mind from terrible memories of the past that were +haunting him” (p. 13). Two years later the same mixture of poetic high +lights and crass realism characterized _Mysteries_. Johan Nagel is the +restless hero who falls in love with Dagny Kielland, daughter of the +pastor, and meets with tragic experiences and suicide. Like his author, +“Nagel is at odds with life” and finds peace only in nature. Like +Hamsun he tries vainly to adapt himself to conventions of society and +becomes embittered. “The Hamsun ego,” as Miss Larsen calls the _motif_ +of these earlier tales, recurs in _Editor Lynge_, the drama, _Sunset_, +and _Pan_ (1894). Lieutenant Glahn, the hunter in this last book, +is happy in his hut and outdoors but is proudly unhappy in contact +with humanity; the tale ends in tragedy. Edvarda, the woman of this +story, is erotic and capricious to the point of disgust yet she has a +pathetic element in her nature. + +_Victoria_ shows an advance away from the “Hamsun ego” of revolt and +naturalism towards that of poetry: Johannes, the hero, the miller’s +son, is in harmony with nature; even loss in love cannot blight his +soul. There are sentences of poetic diction in this novel and in +_Munken Vendt_ (1902), the dramatic poem which embodies the character +of a lovable, simple vagabond. One recalls the words of Edwin Björkman, +in the Introduction to his translation of _Hunger_; “The artist and the +vagabond seem equally to have been in the blood of Hamsun from the very +start.”[134] Before he attained to the second type of novel--the less +subjective and more idealistic group--(if idealism may be so expanded +in meaning) Hamsun wrote a trilogy of plays, beginning with _At the +Gates of the Kingdom_ (1895) with Kareno, a philosophical student +and writer, as hero, and a wife of sexual domination. The author’s +tenets about life and government are voiced by Kareno in this drama +and _Life’s Play_, ten years later in setting; the third in the cycle, +_Sunset_ (1898) shows Kareno at fifty, full of scientific doubts and +reactions from earlier aspirations for liberty and truth. The author +indulges his satire against professional “moralists” in these plays; +sometimes, he indulges, also, his unvarnished frankness of sensual +portrayals, and his lack of deference for old age. The play, _In the +Grip of Life_, was translated by Graham and Tristan Rawson and issued +in 1924 (Knopf). The women in his plays are, generally, animalistic, or +erotic, lacking diversity in types. + +With the appearance of _Children of the Age_ (or _Children of the +Times_) in 1909, followed by _Segelfoss Town_ and _Growth of the Soil_, +the reader of persistent interest in Hamsun realized that the author +had orientated himself, that he was “finding his place” in literature. +He was still defying society, “the group,” still disclaiming belief +in democracy, but he had gained “a social vision.” In method +characteristic of many novelists, he has chosen a family, with strong +racial traits, the family of Willatz Holmsen, for the expression of +his sociological ideas. The despotic, anxious Willatz III, a retired +Lieutenant, is a character that lingers in memory; he is vitally real +in his relations with his wife, of higher social rank, and with his +son, the musicianly boy; he is dramatic and pathetic in his defiance +of Tobias Holmengraa, the industrial “king” from South America. The +last days of stubborn pride and loneliness are scenes of artistic +fiction. _Segelfoss Town_, written before _The Growth of the Soil_, +but translated afterwards by J. S. Scott (Knopf, 1925), continues the +story of this family and the departure of Holmengraa, after a financial +collapse, leaving behind his daughter, Mariane, half Mexican in blood, +who marries the commercial “leader of the small town. Segelfoss Town +has been called a ‘Norwegian Main Street.’” There is much irony and +reiterated sordidness in the tale. The telegraph operator, Baardsen, is +a daring, strong character. + +In the Introduction to _Dreamers_, W. W. Worster (New York, 1922) calls +_The Growth of the Soil_ Hamsun’s “greatest triumph.” It is the _one_ +book thus far appearing in American edition, that seems to win wide +reading. It is localized in setting, objective in theme, and universal +in human appeal. Isac (or Isak) is a convincing character of elemental +type. He symbolizes man, when face to face with nature. Inger is a +coarse Lapp woman in her physical nature yet she seeks expression for +finer feelings, even as she strangles the third baby girl that would +bear, through life, the mother’s curse of a hair lip. “Back to the +soil!” is the message of this masterpiece of Norwegian fiction. It has +a large group of Norwegian characters, and a challenging tone regarding +many moral issues, but it maintains artistic unity. + +That Knut Hamsun has grown steadily in literary skill, that he has +written novels of vigor and photographic effects, cannot be denied. +That he has a philosophical attitude towards humanity and the driving +forces behind society (especially as applied to Norway), is also +evident. His self-education, his persistence, and his assimilated +judgment, together with caustic wit and grotesque humor, are other +qualities that must be accounted to his credit. On the other hand, he +is often slothful and diffuse in structure and offensive to æsthetic +minds because of his stress of sexual impulses and his coarseness. +He does not condone immorality but he seems indifferent to its +existence. In his personal convictions, however, he realizes the need +of a basic morality. Says Professor Wiehr: “It is just this absence +of ‘the triumph of a moral idea’ which will stand most in the way of +any popularity of Hamsun’s works with the great majority of American +readers.” Other explanations of Hamsun’s attitude towards Christianity +and “constructive ideas” are given in this excellent study by Professor +Wiehr.[135] He thinks that his countrymen, and “all backward nations,” +are in a much better position to follow his advice than the millions +that populate the countries leading the world in industries. Some +critics affirm that Hamsun’s compatriot, Johan Boyer, in his condensed, +dramatic novels, _The Great Hunger_, _The Last of the Vikings_, _A +Pilgrimage_, and _The Emigrants_ is more gifted as a novelist and +shows more evidences of idealistic vision. In his personal life, +Hamsun has revealed the traits of the wanderer, “vagabond” if you +will, combined with the deep-rooted love of home and devotion to his +countrymen in their industrial needs and their educational struggles. +He is not an optimist but he advocates persistent work and the +preservation of spiritual freedom and courage. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[125] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1920. + +[126] _Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life_ by Josef +Wiehr, _Smith College Studies in Modern Languages_, Vol. III, Nos. 1 +and 2, pp. 2, 3. + +[127] _Literary Digest_ 67: 35, November 20, 1920. + +[128] _Knut Hamsun: A Study_ by Hanna Arstrup Larsen, Knopf, New York, +1922. + +[129] _Ibid._, p. 19. + +[130] _Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life_, +Northampton, 1922. + +[131] Introduction to _Hunger_ by Knut Hamsun, translated by Edwin +Björkman, New York, 1920. By permission of Alfred A. Knopf. + +[132] _Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life_ by Josef +Wiehr, Northampton, 1922, pp. 8, 9. By permission of Prof. Wiehr. + +[133] Introduction to _Hunger_, translated by Edwin Björkman. + +[134] _Hunger_, translated by George Egerton, New York, 1920. By +permission of Alfred A. Knopf. + +[135] _Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life_ by Josef +Wiehr, Northampton, 1922. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ANATOLE FRANCE--VERSATILE STYLIST IN FICTION AND ESSAYS + + + The prize of 1921 has been awarded: + + Anatole France (Thibault, Jacques Anatole), Paris, born 1844; died + 1924: “in recognition of his splendid activity as an author,--an + activity marked by noble style, large-hearted humanity, charm and + French _esprit_.”[136] + +When Anatole France, who had been the Nobel prize winner of 1921, died +in the autumn of 1924, there was scarcely a journal of standing in any +country that did not summarize his influence upon letters and life in +France and other nations. Distinctly Parisian in traits and expression, +this writer was broadly international in his analysis of humanity, in +his genial mockery of life, in his dreamy idealism which coexisted +with a ruthless realism. He had lived the full span of life--and +_lived_ it to the end of his eighty years. He had written in moods of +biting satire and emotional intensity; he had found themes in history, +current topics, and the future. As he neared the close of his life, +the emphasis was more upon the genial, kindly aspects of humanity; +his later literary expressions were memories of his boyhood and youth, +the completion of that cycle of intuitive memories that began with _My +Friend’s Book_ (1885) and _Pierre Nozière_, and ended with _Little +Pierre_ and _The Bloom of Life_ (1922). + +[Illustration: + + _Copyright, 1925, by J. B. Lippincott Company._ + _Photograph by Choumoff, Paris_ + +ANATOLE FRANCE] + +Between these volumes of imaginative and reminiscent delights, which +form a better biography of his mind and spirit than has otherwise been +written, Anatole France produced such diverse literary types, such +books of ironic and cynical flavor as _The Red Lily_, _Thaïs_, _The +Revolt of the Angels_, _The Amethyst Ring_, _At the Sign of the Reine +Pédauque_, _Crainquebille_, _The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife_, _The +Elm Tree on the Mall_, _Penguin Island_, _The Gods Are Athirst_, _The +Life of Jeanne d’Arc_, _The Human Comedy_, and volumes of critical +essays and poems. To the books of more reminiscent flavor, with wistful +idealism, he was indebted, especially, for the honor of the Nobel +prize. These had already won the tributes--and critical estimates--of +readers of European countries, of Canada, United States and South +America. Few writers have had such diverse judgments passed upon them; +in many cases, the temperamental traits of the critic influence his +reactions to this author; in other instances, most effusive tributes, +like those by James Lewis May and Paul Gsell, of recent years (1924), +have brought natural reactions in more unvarnished truth, tinged +with wit and naturalism, like the biography by Jean-Jacques Brousson: +_Anatole France Himself_ which has been called facetiously _Anatole +France in Bed-Slippers_ (the French title reads _Anatole France en +pantouffles_, 1925). Mr. May has written as a friend and warm admirer; +Paul Gsell, as a disciple; M. Brousson, as private secretary and +fearless narrator. + +It might be said that Anatole France was _born_ into the inheritance of +books in 1844, for his father, François Noël Thibault, was a bookseller +of repute throughout Paris and its environs. Son of a shoemaker in +Anjou, this elder Thibault had taught himself to read and write while +he had been in military service as a young man. At his bookshops in +the Quai Malaquais and Quai Voltaire gathered scholars and authors, +iconoclasts in politics and letters and religion; the shopkeeper was +a Royalist and a fervent Catholic. In the character of Dr. Nozière, +in _Pierre Nozière_, his son “has taken away the bookshop,” as he +confesses, but he has revealed many traits of his father’s character. +In the Epilogue to _The Bloom of Life_ are other memories that may be +“capricious,” as he admits, but are none the less true “records” of his +childhood. Here his father’s lack of business instincts is suggested +as elsewhere--he would often prefer to _read_ his books rather than to +_sell_ them. The influence of these boyhood days in this bookshop, +with contact directly with thinkers and writers, with wits and critics, +must have been vital and permeating in the later development of Anatole +France as psychologist and stylist. + +In his last hours, we are told, this famous writer who had been “a +genial mocker at life,” an epicurean and scoffer, a scholar of wide +culture, called upon the name of his mother. She had been the first, +and one of the most significant factors in his life-development. There +are passages of less deferential tone about her in _Anatole France +Himself: a Boswellian Record_, by Jean-Jacques Brousson (Philadelphia, +1925). She was of good Flemish family, with unfailing _esprit_ and +optimism, practical and able to “attend to the gears of household +management that got loose sometimes,” with an absent-minded father. +She was, however, a rare story-teller and devoted to her boy with +the unusual gifts which she alone, in his boyhood, could foresee and +encourage. How happy he was at home is revealed in many chapters of +his books--not alone those of acknowledged reminiscence but others +like _The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard_ and an occasional essay _On Life +and Letters_. By contrast with the joys of home--the delicate table +linen and decanters, the “tranquil faces,” the easy talk--he disliked +the classrooms and the restrictions of school life, declaring, “Ah, +Home is a famous school.” A sense of humor and a keen interest in +humanity made the life at the Collège Stanislas endurable but he loved +solitude; he resented the gibes of instructors and students, and he +stole away to the quays along the Seine at the hour of noon recess to +eat his luncheon--or to forget to eat it--and returned too late for the +afternoon session and his chance to recite. + +It was his mother’s faith and intuition that refused to be severe with +him, even when the professor’s report of his school work was “progress +nil--conduct bad,” even when his father accepted the verdict of M. +Dubois, the professor, that the boy would never accomplish anything in +arts or sciences. Then his mother whispered words that he never forgot: +“Be a writer, my son; you have brains and you will make the envious +hold their tongues.” If his mother was the first vital influence in +making her son a world-famous writer, the second was the city of Paris +that he loved, studied and photographed on his memory from boyhood +to old age. The parks and avenues, the Louvre and the Trocadéro, the +sidewalk cafés and the bookshops beyond beautiful Notre-Dame, the +vivacious men and women, the workers on the streets and the children +in the playgrounds, the stately palaces and the tiny rooms above a +publishing shop--all these aspects of Paris form a panoramic picture in +his books. + +In 1868, when Anatole France was an unknown, dreamy, book-browsing +young man of twenty-four, there appeared an _Etude_ of Alfred de +Vigny which was _his_ tribute to the poet who was “the exemplar of a +beautiful life, which gave beautiful work to the world.” The author was +known as one of a group of young men who gathered in the rue de Condé +to discuss poetry and other forms of writing. Two years later he was +serving in the army, trying to forget the shells that dropped in front +of him by reading Vergil or playing his flute.[137] In the years that +followed he wrote political satires, prefaces, read manuscripts for the +publisher Lemerre, collaborated in Larousse’s dictionary and did other +“odds and ends” of an editorial kind. + +After the Franco-Prussian War, Lemerre published the small book of +verse to which Anatole France had devoted his leisure and zest, +_Poèmes après_. In spite of some stanzas of lyrical beauty they +attracted little attention. Better known is _The Bride of Corinth_ that +appeared three years later and revealed the author’s keen analysis of +paganism and early Christianity. It is translated with other plays +and poems by Wilfrid Jackson and Emilia Jackson, 1920. For a time +he was assistant to Leconte de Lisle in the Senate Library.[138] +As a witty conversationalist and brilliant companion, he was a +favorite in the salons of Catulle Mendes and Mme. Nina de Callias, +the would-be poet. At the home of M. de Bonnières, where gathered +actors, writers, and musicians, Anatole France was always welcomed. In +1881 appeared the book which registered the beginning of his popular +acclaim, _The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard_; one may say that it is +_the book_ by which, during the last forty years, the author has been +familiar to international readers, old and young. It is a simple +tale, sentimental, without much plot but with two marked qualities of +lasting appeal--sincerity and charm. Ten years later he laughed at its +continued popularity, especially the claim that it was “a masterpiece,” +saying “it was a masterpiece of platitudinousness,” adding that he +wrote it for a prize and won it.[139] + +Predictions of future fame were expressed in reviews of this book and, +four years later, the public responded to _My Friend’s Book_, the first +of the cycle of youthful memories, vignettes of life which reveal the +author’s poetic reveries and friendly humanity. They differ from _The +Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard_ as the author gives here photographic +pictures of his boyhood, adolescence, and young manhood while in +Sylvestre Bonnard, the aged, lovable book-collector and Academician, +he gives an imaginative picture of what the author _may be_. He is +lonely and dominated by his cat, Hamilcar, and his housekeeper, +cherishing the romantic memories of Clementine, and is urged by these +sentiments to his sacrifice for her daughter. A few of his boyhood +memories, however, are incorporated into the early chapters of this +book--the craving for a doll, the silhouette of the uncle, Captain +Victor, and other pages of wistfulness and humor. Lafcadio Hearn, in +his Introduction to the translation of this classic _roman_, says +words that may be applied to the cycle of memories (for they all have +hall-marks of the author’s superb paradoxical genius). “If by Realism +we mean Truth, which alone gives value to any study of human nature, +we have in Anatole France a very dainty realist;--if by Romanticism we +understand that unconscious tendency of the artist to elevate truth +itself beyond the range of the familiar, and into the emotional realm +of aspiration, then Anatole France is at times a romantic.... It is +because of his far rarer power to deal with what is older than any art, +and withal more young, and incomparably more precious: the beauty of +what is beautiful in human emotion, that this story will live.”[140] + +After 1886 the weekly “Causerie,” which Anatole France contributed _On +Life and Letters_ to the Paris _Temps_, increased his literary fame and +established his rank as critic. Here appeared such diverse, stimulating +judgments upon writers of the day, as Maupassant and Dumas, Balzac and +Marie Bashkirtseff, François Coppée (compared with Sully-Prudhomme and +Frédéric Plessis), Renan and George Sand; among topics of more general +interest were “Prince Bismarck,” “The Young Girl of the Past and the +Young Girl of the Present,” and “Virtue in France.” Four volumes of +these essays, _On Life and Letters_, have been translated into English. +It was nine years after _The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard_ that another +book appeared to rivet attention upon this industrious, progressive +author. He once declared that he wrote the earlier book “to please +the public” but that he wrote the later, _Thaïs_, to please himself. +In development of skill in fiction it is superior; it has been well +described as “an epic of eternal struggle between the spirit and the +senses.”[141] The author had passed through some emotional crises since +he wrote his earlier books of reminiscence, notably _My Friend’s Book_, +with its reflections of his happy home life and the whimsical domestic +discussions between the wife of his youth and himself about their +daughter, Susanne. He had traveled and become imbued with sensuous +beauty of southern lands; he had been annoyed, to the verge of anger, +by reactionists, represented in _Thaïs_ by Palaemon, “who would banish +joy and beauty from the world.” He made Nicias, often a skeptic in +his surface sentiments, his spokesman. The poet and the realist are +commingled in this tale of disillusionment, even as they are found +in the later, more vehement books of the novelist-satirist, _The Red +Lily_, _At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque_ (considered by many critics +his masterwork), _The Amethyst Ring_, _The Gods Are Athirst_, _The +Wicker-Work Woman_, _Penguin Island_, _The Revolt of the Angels_, and +shorter stories like _Crainquebille_, _The White Stone_, _The Seven +Wives of Bluebeard_, and _Tales from a Mother of Pearl Casket._ + +Fresh memories of the Dreyfus Case were awakened by his poignant satire +in _Penguin Island_ with its elements of burlesque. The author’s +historical research, which bore ripe fruits in _The Life of Jeanne +d’Arc_, is revealed in _The Gods Are Athirst_, with sardonic wit and +dramatic passages between Evariste, his mother, and his mistress. +Julie, his beautiful sister, appeals to the reader’s sympathy. The +ex-farmer of taxes, whose livelihood is now made by cutting out +cardboard dancing dolls, is a haunting character. He voices, perhaps, +the author’s attitude to life at this period--that is was full of +disillusionment and defeats but was not worth the cost of one’s anxiety +to the point of despair. In some of these satiric tales of life, +notably _The Revolt of the Angels_ when they come to Paris and behold +certain social conditions, there are passages so naturalistic that they +offend tastes of less “sophisticated” readers. Some of the books by +Anatole France were tabooed in libraries before the award of the Nobel +prize; the year after that was given, all of his works, without due +discrimination, were “placed on the Index” by the Roman Curia because +of excess of utterances that were communistic and anti-clerical in +tone. When he went to Stockholm to receive this prize in person he +was reported to have said, regarding the Treaty of Versailles, “the +most horrible of wars was followed by a treaty which was not a treaty +of peace but a prolongation of the war. The downfall of Europe is +inevitable unless at long last the spirit of reason is imported into +its councils.”[142] + +In contrast to these fearless words that brought him the condemnation +of French journals, he made more urbane response to the literary honor +conferred upon him, adding to his personal gratitude, tribute to the +Swedish Academy: “Its decisions possess an international value, +and I rejoice in it, for it is a confirmation of what is, for me, +the principal lesson of the war, the beneficent influence exerted +by intellectual intercourse with other countries.” There had been +rumors, well attested, that the young men of France had repudiated +Anatole France as a leader, seeking other exponents of philosophy and +echoing the adverse comments upon him by Maurice Barrès and Henri +Massis, editor of _La Revue Universelle_. They contended that he +failed to give them a constructive philosophy in the hour of need. +He never claimed to be a philosopher; he was an observer of life, a +commentator, a poet-dreamer, a lover of justice, an ironist, a stylist +rather than a thinker. He was not widely read in other languages and +philosophies as were Georg Brandes or Sainte-Beuve. He bore some +relationship to Brotteaux of his story, _The Gods Are Athirst_, who was +condemned to death because of his lack of reverence for great political +revolutionists. Anatole France saw the world as a subject for keen +wit that is often sardonic but seldom bitter. He found life sadly in +contrast with some of his visions as a youth but he did not despair of +a future of more equality of conditions, more tolerance in creeds. Paul +Gsell, one of his hero-worshipers, in his records of conferences at the +Villa Saïd, the Paris home of “the Master,” has recalled significant +thoughts uttered by him upon “The Credo of a Skeptic,” “Politics in +the Academy,” and other themes.[143] + +In his _Boswellian Record_ by Jean-Jacques Brousson (Lippincott, +1925) there are frank confessions of his “show conversations” and his +“contradictory ideas” which caused shyness and lack of clarity of +mind. He recalls “the almond icing” which he put on his first version +of _The Life of Jeanne d’Arc_, to be “picturesque” and to please “the +sanctimonious.” These “snap-shots” of Anatole France “en pantouffles,” +in moods of relaxation, are even less interesting than some of the +quotations of serious sort from the words of this master of style. Two +significant sentences will be often quoted; “You become a good writer +just as you become a good joiner; by planing down your sentences.”... +“People take me for a juggler, a sophist, a droll fellow. In reality I +have passed my life twisting dynamite into curl-papers.”[144] + +Without question the return of Anatole France to the spirit and mode +of his earlier books, to the idealism, combined with photographic +vividness in _The Bloom of Life_, influenced the decision of the +Swedish Academy in his favor, in 1921. He was, in his old age, +living again the scenes of his youth--discussing with his schoolmate, +Fontanet, “People Who Do Not Give Enough”; playing truant from the +ferule of Monsieur Crottu whose rule “was a tissue of injustices”; +recalling “Days of Enchantment” when he went to his first play; +photographing “Monsieur Dubois, the Quiz,” and plucky Phillipine +Gobelin; and yielding again to the spell of Vergil and the Sixth +Eclogue, with its wonder and beauty. The stinging irony disappeared +from these later pages--irony which motivated such books (or portions +of them) as _Histoire contemporaine_ and _The Revolt of the Angels_ or +“A Mummer’s Tale” in _Histoire comique_. + +Dual personality which resides in all persons was most marked in this +writer of charm and force, this exponent of his race, and of his age +among _all_ races. “Compassionate idealism” is the phrase chosen by +James Lewis May to explain the polemical essays and radical criticisms +of governments and religions, that are expressed or implied in many +of his writings. James Huneker calls him “a true humanist”; he thinks +he loved humanity and learning; he loved words, also, but he was “a +modern thinker, who has shed the despotism of the positivist dogma +and boasts the soul of a chameleon.”[145] He stresses his irony which +is “Pagan” and his pity which is “Christian.” Sisley Huddlestone, in +_Those Europeans_, devotes a chapter to Anatole France as “Ironist +and Dreamer.” The phrases are well chosen; the interpretation of +his salient traits is condensed but convincing: “In his irony one +constantly catches glimpses of beauty. By showing us life as it is, +though without bitterness, he indicates life as it should be. He +teaches tolerance and placidity in an age in which even the reformers +add to the confusion by their reckless energy.”[146] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[136] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1921. + +[137] _Anatole France: the Man and His Work_ by James Lewis May, London +and New York, 1923, p. 72. + +[138] _Studies from Ten Literatures_ by Ernest Boyd, New York, 1925. + +[139] _Anatole France Himself_ by Jean-Jacques Brousson, Philadelphia, +1925. + +[140] London, Bodley Head, Crown Edition, 1924, pp. v and ix. By +permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. + +[141] _Anatole France: the Man and His Work_ by James Lewis May, +London, 1924, p. 120. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. + +[142] _Ibid._, p. 108. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co. + +[143] _The Opinions of Anatole France_, recorded by Paul Gsell; in +American edition, _The Conversations_, etc., New York, 1924. + +[144] _Anatole France Himself: a Boswellian Record_, by Jean-Jacques +Brousson, pp. 95, 347, Philadelphia, 1925. By permission of J. B. +Lippincott Co. + +[145] _Egoists_ by James Huneker, New York, 1909, p. 143. By permission +of Charles Scribner’s Sons. + +[146] _Those Europeans_ by Sisley Huddlestone, New York, 1924. By +permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +TWO SPANISH DRAMATISTS--ECHEGARAY (1904), BENAVENTE (1922) + + + The prize of 1904 was awarded one half to: + + Echegaray, José, member of the Spanish Academy, born 1833, died + September 14, 1916: “in appreciation of his comprehensive and + intellectual authorship which, in an independent and original way, + has brought to life again the great traditions of the Spanish + drama.”[147] + +Until recent years, Spanish literature has been less accessible by +translation than that of many other European countries. Fiction by +Galdós, Valera, Valdes, and Ibañez have given to English and American +readers somewhat adequate impressions of the realistic power and poetic +undertones of some of these latter-day novelists. In drama, three of +Galdós’ plays, nine by Martínez-Sierra, a dozen more by Echegaray, +and several by Benavente have been rendered into excellent English +by such gifted translators as John Garrett Underhill, James Graham, +Charles Nirdlinger, Hannah Lynch, Ruth Lansing, and others.[148] In +the awards to Spanish dramatists of the Nobel prize in 1904 and 1922, +two generations with their differing standards and literary methods, +have been represented--Echegaray and Benavente. In German literature, +as exampled by Heyse and Hauptmann, and in Polish fiction, with its +representatives, Sienkiewicz and Reymont, one finds the same recurrent +recognition in successive generations. + +José Echegaray, who shared the honor of 1904 with Frédéric Mistral, +was born in Madrid in 1833; that city was his home until his death in +1916, except for periods of travel or retirement because of political +friction. As Sully-Prudhomme found his first impulse towards science, +so Echegaray studied mathematics “ferociously, ravenously.” He made +researches, also, in geology and philosophy. Under the republican +government he held public offices, like Ministers of Agriculture, +Industry, and Commerce, President of the Council of Education, and +Senator for Life. After teaching at the National Technical School, +where he had been educated, he became identified with the University of +Madrid. + +At first the writing of plays seems to have been a pastime for this +mathematician and politician. _The Wife of the Avenger_, _At the Hilt +of the Sword_, and _The Gladiator of Ravenna_, which appeared between +1874 and 1876, were popular in Spain but are little known by English +translation. In 1877 he wrote a drama that has been much discussed, +since it was translated as _Madman or Saint_ by Ruth Lansing (Poet +Lore, Boston, 1912); another translation by Hannah Lynch (Boston, 1895) +bore the title, _Folly or Saintliness_. Still another translation by +Mary Serrano is used in _Library of the World’s Best Literature_. It +is a strong play emotionally, with that touch of idealism and romance +which were traits of the author, blended with his keen analysis. Don +Lorenzo, a wealthy man of Madrid, finds that he has been deceived +regarding his parentage; he is not the son of a rich mother of noble +family, as he and the world supposed, but the child of his nurse, +Juana, who dies after she tells him the tale. No longer young, with his +daughter engaged to a son of the Duchess of Almonte, he is determined +to tell the truth and so defy his family. A specialist in mental +disease is called with the physician to examine him; at the same time +he sends for a notary to record his renunciation of his name and +estate. His final monologue is dramatic, beginning with the lines: +“What! is a man to be declared mad because he is resolved to do his +duty. It cannot be! Humanity is neither so blind nor so bad as that!” + +These earlier plays by Echegaray, which called forth such ardent praise +from his countrymen, who would rank him with Calderon and Lope de +Vega of the past centuries, are trivial in literary value beside two +of later years, _The Great Galeoto_ and _The Son of Don Juan_. Eleven +years separated these two strong dramas (1881-1892) during which the +author continued to write plays, some with historical setting like +_Harold the Norman_ and _Lysander the Bandit_; others were of romantic +type, some tragedies and more comedies. In general, he sought to +revive romantic drama, to proclaim the sharp conflicts in life between +passion and duty. His motives were often more pronounced than his +characterization; his men and women were sometimes mere mechanisms, +fighting their battles for honor and truth. There was a chivalrous +note in his lines where domestic fidelity formed the keynote of the +emotional struggle. Soliloquy was much used by this dramatist. + +When _The Son of Don Juan_ and _Mariana_ were translated, and linked in +the memory of English readers with _The Great Galeoto_, world-critics +gave study to this forceful Spanish dramatist who had grown in favor +during the decade from 1890 to 1900. Two characteristics of _The Great +Galeoto_ were noted: the fearless, vigorous portrayal of the evil of +gossip and resultant tragedy; the fact that the chief personage in +the play exercised occult influence and did not appear on the stage. +He is the “busybody,” who creates all the troublesome situations, +who directs the characters (or suggests their words) but he is not +present. Elizabeth Wallace, in an article of value in the _Atlantic +Monthly_, September, 1908, on “The Spanish Drama of Today,” says: “This +vanishing hero is the cruel, careless world, hastening eagerly to cast +the first stone, and, so soon tired of the sport, hurrying on to find +some new excitement, leaving death and destruction in its wake.”[149] +This culprit is the city of Madrid (or society anywhere). There are +individualized characters like Theodora and Don Julian; Don Severo, the +plotter, may well be compared to Iago. + +Even more virile than this romantic tragedy is _The Son of Don Juan_; +it suggests Ibsen’s _Ghosts_, both in germ-idea and _dénouement_, +although it has distinctive merit. Echegaray borrowed the words of the +Norwegian dramatist for the lines of Lazarus, “Mother, give me the +sun!” In the Prologue the Spanish author expands these symbolic words +to “enfold a world of ideas, an ocean of sentiments, a hell of sorrows, +a cruel lesson, a supreme warning to society and to the family circle.” +Society is, again, at the bar of justice, as in _The Great Galeoto_; +the offense this time is lax morality of parent, and the lunacy which +falls, in retribution, on the child. The mother of Lazarus is a +convincing character. In _Mariana_ are found some of the strongest +delineations in Echegaray’s dramas, notably Clara, wife of Don Castulo, +the grotesque archeologist, and Mariana, the widow, with riches in +America, described by Clara (in a touch of jealousy, yet appreciation) +as “a widow who is hardly a widow and is almost a child.” The latter +woman is capricious, disdainful, yet passionate in her relations with +her lover, Daniel. Melodrama enters somewhat into the closing scenes of +intrigue and excitement. James Graham has translated both _Mariana_ and +_The Son of Don Juan_. + +Echegaray continued to write plays, stimulated by the recognition +and the honors of 1904. When the award was made, there was a popular +demonstration in Madrid; the king presided and presented the prize, +while speeches were made by Galdós, Valera, and Mendenez Palayo, who +had once been his bitter critic. On this occasion Palayo said: “For +thirty years Echegaray has been the dictator, arbiter and idol of the +multitude, a position impossible to attain without the strength of +genius, which triumphs in literature as everywhere.”[150] He was much +honored in France and called “a second Victor Hugo.” It has not been +easy for American students to interpret the plays by Echegaray; they +fail to understand fully, especially on the stage, the situations +and sentiments of the Spanish dramatist. Many of the keen, brilliant +lines, both of analysis and wit, suffer in translation into English. +For Drama League readings, or group study and discussion, his plays +lend themselves to interpretation and study. This is true, not alone +the longer and familiar dramas already noted but such short plays as +_Always Ridiculous_, translated by T. W. Gilkyson,[151] and _The Street +Singer_, translated by John Garrett Underhill[152] and included in +Frank Shay’s _25 Short Plays_ of international selection (New York, +1925). Irony and wistfulness are mingled in this dramatic picture of +the little beggar-girl, Suspiros, of Augustias, the street singer, and +her lover, Pepe. Suspiros, sixteen and pretty but sickly, speaks to +Coleta, a professional beggar of fifty years:[153] + + _Coleta._ You don’t know how to beg. + + _Suspiros._ Yes, sir, I know how to beg; the trouble is, people don’t + know how to give. I say, “A penny for my poor mother who is sick.” + And you ought to see how sick she is! She died two years ago. Well, + I get nothing. Or else I say, “A penny for God’s sake, for my mother + who is in the hospital, in the name of the Blessed Virgin! I have two + baby brothers.” No one gives, either. + + _Coleta._ They don’t, eh? And how many brothers are you going to have + to-night? + + _Suspiros._ Ay, Signor Coleta! I had two and nobody gave me anything. + Last night I tried four and I got sixpence, so to-night I mean to + have five and see what they give me, or whether I just get the cuff + from my mother. + + _Coleta._ Just in the family, how many brothers have you, really? + + _Suspiros._ Really, I had two. But they died, like my mother. Ay! + they died because of the way my stepmother treated them--as she does + me--and I am dying! Listen! If I can make two or three dollars I am + going to run away to Jativa, and live with my aunt. + +Echegaray was seventy-two years old when he gained the prize; he +was already called by some critics a “representative of the older +generation.” Interest in his plays, however, has gained rather than +waned, among critical scholars in every country, and his rank is +assured among the romantic dramatists of this century. His seriousness, +combined with keen wit and insight, has been compared with similar +traits of Tolstoy. Both writers have emphasized the “dignity of +suffering” for the sake of spiritual freedom. This is exampled in +Echegaray’s _Madman or Saint_, already cited. Conscientious and sincere +in his work, this Spanish dramatist has left a few plays of strong +characterization and potent message to society, a message that has an +element of idealism, flashing out amid the grim realities of life. + + +JACINTO BENAVENTE + + The prize of 1922 has been awarded: + + Benavente, Jacinto, dramatic writer, Madrid, born 1866: “for the + happy way in which he has pursued the honored traditions of the + Spanish drama.”[154] + +Jacinto Benavente, to whom the Nobel prize was given in 1922, was +acclaimed as especially worthy by those who sought for a representative +of “the new generation” in Spanish drama--what was known as “the +generation of 1898” which decried past methods and urged modern themes +and viewpoints. Benavente was born in Madrid in 1866, a generation +younger than Echegaray. His father was a prominent physician and the +boy had stimulating home environment. He studied law for a brief time +but he inclined towards writing and the theatre. He had some actual +experiences “on the road” with theatrical troupes and with a circus, +thus gaining first-hand information about theatrical devices and the +needs of both actors and audiences. His first venture in print was as +a poet, in 1893, but the next year he published a play, _Thy Brother’s +House_. This and other immature plays received scanty notice until, +in 1896, appeared _In Society_. Two years later _The Banquet of Wild +Beasts_ focussed attention upon this daring, brilliant playwright. He +became a leader among young professional men in Madrid who, following +the Spanish-American War, were eager to renounce tradition and to +revolutionize society by exposing its vices and weaknesses. They would +punctuate “modernism” in thought and expression with ideals of poetry. +A summary of this is found in _A Study of the Modern Drama_ by Barrett +H. Clark (New York, 1925). + +Benavente is less radical than some of his literary associates in +Spain, France, and Russia. He does not disdain “traditions,” if they +ring true to life and art. He is graceful and versatile, writing plays +of manner and characterization, satires on aristocracy and sympathetic +scenes of peasant life. He compels his readers or spectators to +_think_, if they will get stimulus from his plays like _The Truth_, +_Autumnal Roses_, _The Magic of an Hour_, and _Field of Ermine_. + +In 1913, Benavente was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy. +He is widely quoted on educational and political, as well as literary +affairs. He has ideals for a greater freedom than now exists in Spain +and other European countries. He has traveled widely, seeing his plays +performed and making friends in Russia, England, South America, and +the United States. _The Passion Flower_ (_La Malquerida_), the tragedy +of peasant life with colorful setting and tense emotion, has been +popular in America, as a film, and as a play with Nance O’Neil as +actress. The Theatre Guild of New York and the Jewish Art Theatre gave +careful study to the interpretation of _The Bonds of Interest_. As in +many of his plays the serious lesson is not stressed to interfere with +the artistry. One of his best characterizations is Nevé, heroine of +_El Hombrecito_, often compared to Ibsen’s Nora of _A Doll’s House_. +Benavente believes that the inner meaning of a play must be revealed +by the mind or emotions of the spectator or reader. He is deeply +indebted--a debt which English and American readers share--for the +intuitive, careful translations and editing of several series of his +plays by John Garrett Underhill (Scribner’s, New York, 1917-1925). +Only in such interpretation can one fully appreciate the strength and +fineness of character-drawing, the satirical thesis, the fantasy and +poetry blended in such plays as _The Governor’s Wife_, _The Prince +Who Learned Everything out of Books_, _Saturday Night_, _The Other +Honor_, and _The Necklace of Stars_, with its fanciful charm and +sermonic lesson of love to one’s neighbor. In Ernest Boyd’s _Studies +from Ten Literatures_ there is a good summary of his life and work +which includes 144 plays. Mr. Boyd raises the question, “Has he been +overestimated?” Possibly it is an echo of French criticism. Valuable +material is found, also, in Storm Jameson’s _Modern Drama in Europe_ +and _A Study of the Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark (New York, +1925). A new intensive study is _Jacinto Benavente_ by Walter Starkie +(New York, 1925). + +[Illustration: + + _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._ + +JACINTO BENAVENTE] + +_Expressionism_ classifies the work of dramatists like Benavente, +Molnar, and Capek. The methods used by the Spanish playwright to embody +this principle are to “generalize” both the action and his characters, +so that they become symbols of real life, appealing to the subjective +element in readers. He has declared that, henceforth, he intends to +write plays for publication and not for the theatre.... “The only way +in which a play may be appreciated thoroughly is by being read,” he +says. “I have written more than a thousand parts, yet of that number +I can recall perhaps five which I have recognized as being truly the +characters I had conceived, when they stepped upon the stage. I have +not even seen some of my plays.”[155] This stress upon the futility +of staging plays that should be interpreted by the reader’s own +imagination and mind, is not unlike that by Maeterlinck, already noted +in a previous chapter. + +Benavente not infrequently uses puppets in place of real characters +to convey his inner meanings. Sometimes they are given real names but +they are not the _true_ characters he wishes the reader to discover +in them, as in the first scenes of _The Bonds of Interest_. In a +brief parable-play, _The Magic of an Hour_,[156] he has two symbolic +characters, “A Merveilleuse” and “An Incroyable,” two porcelain +figures upon columns that converse about life and love, books and +flowers, poetry and music. In this adroit, short comedy the author has +interwoven some thoughts that express that peculiar idealism which is +his, that contrast between weak humanity and the craving “for something +which is not ourselves, and yet which is the breath of living.” The +nearest approach to this ideal is love, which can transform, “by the +magic of an hour,” evil, men-beasts, cowards, “devils in crime,” into +“spirits of light, luminous with a divine wisdom through all instincts +of the beast.”[157] In sentences of such groping faith, such idealism +of the “inner eye,” scattered through the hundred and more plays by +Jacinto Benavente, one may establish, in a measure, his right to the +Nobel prize. With this is blended what Storm Jameson calls his “divine +sanity.” On the score of literary achievement, he is an artist, +versatile and sincere, delicate and yet vigorous in his workmanship. +His plays vary in value for the student of drama; some of the later +titles, like _A Pair of Shoes_ or _Doubtful Virtue_, indicate the +types of psychological plays among Continental playwrights. In his +finer, more characteristic plays, however, there are vital expressions +of idealism. Mr. John Garrett Underhill (in a letter to the author of +this book) says, “Benavente is an idealist of the highest type and +his philosophy is best and most explicitly stated in _The School of +Princesses_ and _Field of Ermine_--service and sacrifice.” + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[147] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1904. + +[148] See _A Study of Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark, New York, +1925, and _Modern Drama in Europe_ by Storm Jameson, New York, 1920. + +[149] By permission of the Atlantic Monthly Company. + +[150] _Review of Reviews_, 31: 613. + +[151] _Poet Lore_, Boston, 1908. + +[152] _Drama_, 25, 62-76. + +[153] By permission of John Garrett Underhill. + +[154] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1922. + +[155] _Plays_; fourth series, xix, edited by John Garrett Underhill. By +permission of Mr. Underhill and Charles Scribner’s Sons. + +[156] _Ibid._ + +[157] _Ibid._, _Magic of an Hour_, p. 125. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +W. B. YEATS AND HIS PART IN THE CELTIC REVIVAL + + + The prize of 1923 has been awarded: + + Yeats, William Butler, born 1865: “for his consistently emotional + poetry, which in the strictest artistic form expresses a people’s + spirit.”[158] + +In the book, _Ideals in Ireland_, edited by Lady Gregory (London and +New York, 1901), the editor speaks of the various contributors to this +revival of letters including George Moore, Æ (George Russell), Douglas +Hyde and W. B. Yeats as “candle-stick makers.” Unlike the “butcher and +the baker,” who have their daily newspaper and appointed tasks that are +appreciated, this type of worker, who makes and holds the candle, is +not so well served. He is the _idealist_ who finds himself, too often, +ignored or maligned; he searches out the “dark places of the earth”; +he is the seer, seeking for truth, aspiration, idealism. This analogy +holds good for many of the winners of the Nobel prizes--Björnson, +Mistral, Tagore, Maeterlinck, Selma Lagerlöf, Heidenstam, Rolland. By +universal consent of readers the name of W. B. Yeats would be added to +this list, the winner of 1923. With delicate imagery Lady Gregory has +expressed the subtle gift of this Irish poet-dramatist, his ability to +catch “the will o’ the wisp fire, miscalled evanescent,” which is the +mark of universal idealism. In his paper, contributed to this book, +_Ideals in Ireland_, Mr. Yeats writes a brief “History of the Literary +Movement” in his country and asks whether this revival of folklore and +poetry of the soil, which is called the Celtic revival, will become a +part of the intellectual and social development of Ireland. These words +were written in 1899; the quarter century since then has answered the +question in the affirmative and has accorded to Mr. Yeats a large share +in this appreciation of simple beauty, love, and chivalry. The names of +Donn Byrne and Padraic Colum, James Stephens and Winifred Letts, Lord +Dunsany and St. John Ervine, suggest some of the poets and playwrights, +“the candle-holders,” who have followed the inspiring leadership of +Lady Gregory, John Synge, Dr. Douglas Hyde, and W. B. Yeats, weaving +their romances and poems about old ballads and folklore of the +“sage-cycles” of Irish literary history. In this Gaelic literature are +songs of battles and of love, legends of saints and heroes, that have +the simplicity and musical vigor of old Greek odes and plays. + +[Illustration: + + _Photograph by Bain News Service_ + +WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS] + +As dramatist, certain critics will aver, with reason, that Synge was +greater than Mr. Yeats; as researcher among the peasantry for folk +tales and forgotten poetry, Lady Gregory and Dr. Douglas Hyde may +deserve higher rank. In the writings of Mr. Yeats, however--lyrics, +ballads, and plays--there are three distinctive qualities: lyrical +beauty, mystical strains, blended wistfulness, and merriment. These +poetic distinctions are found in many of his ballads, notably in “The +Host of the Air,” “The Stolen Child,” and “The Fiddler of Dooney”; they +form the literary warp of such plays as _The Land of Heart’s Desire_, +_The Hour-Glass_, and _On Baile’s Strand_. In every edition of his +plays Mr. Yeats has emphasized his indebtedness to Lady Gregory for +assistance as well as inspiration. In his Notes to _Plays in Prose and +Verse_ (New York, 1924) he acknowledges the sources of “the greater +number of his stories,” as those found in Lady Gregory’s _Gods and +Fighting Men_ and _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_. He affirms that these +two books have made the legendary tales of Ireland as familiar as +are the stories of Sir Arthur and his Knights. Again, he records his +gratitude to Lady Gregory for introducing him to firesides where he +might get “the true countenance of country life.” A third form of +helpfulness was the skill of this friend in her mastery of dialect and +her generous work in revising the lines of Mr. Yeats in this detail +of form. His own ability to evoke music and poetry from dreams and +traditions, and to portray the simple, domestic incidents of peasant +life, was coördinated with Lady Gregory’s aspiration and background of +folklore. + +The father of William Butler Yeats was a well-known artist, John Butler +Yeats, R.H.A. The son, named for his paternal grandfather, was born +at Sandymount, Dublin, June 15, 1865. His father’s family had been +identified with the church; the grandfather of the poet was Rector of +Tullylish Down. His mother’s father was a merchant and shipowner at +Sligo. The boy passed much time with these grandparents in the old +town by the sea. When he was of school age, he was living with his +parents in London and went to the Godolphin School, Hammersmith. At +fifteen he returned to Dublin, attending the Erasmus Smith School and +living with his relatives at Sligo. Memories of these early days are +interwoven with legends and fancies in _The Celtic Twilight_, and the +novel of autobiographical trend, _John Sherman_, which appeared under +the pseudonym of “Gauconagh.” Like his hero of this tale, Yeats was +homesick in London and longed to return to the environment of Sligo (or +Ballah), to the familiar streets, the rows of tumble-down cottages +with thatched roofs, the wharves covered with grass and the walls of +the garden where, it was said, the gardener used to see the ghost of +the former owner in the form of a rabbit.[159] In his poems he recalled +the waves dashing upon the cliffs, the island of Innisfree, and the +distant hills at sunset. + +His father hoped he would become an artist and so continue the family +profession; the youth studied art for a brief time but he was restless +and unproductive. He preferred to browse in libraries, reading +translations--or making them--from Gaelic tales and poems. Even more he +liked to sit by the turf fires in old Connaught and listen to the folk +tales of the peasantry. The first poem in his collection of 1906, is +addressed “To Some I Have Talked With By the Fire.” Here he saw again, +in reverie, the ghostly companions and heard the weird tales of + + the dark folk who lived in souls + Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees. + +When he was nineteen his first poem, “The Island of Statues,” was +published in the _Dublin University Review_. With other young men at +the University he became interested in a Brahmin, who was in London; +on their invitation he came to Dublin to teach his philosophy. This +yearning towards the occult was natural for a temperament like that +of Yeats. He recalled that they fed the Brahmin a plate of rice or an +apple every day and listened to his expositions. + +Mrs. Katherine Tynan Hinkson, a friend of Yeats in young manhood +and later life, in her _Twenty-Five Years; Reminiscences_ has given +interesting stories of his zest in reciting his poems, even in the +middle of the night and of his dreamy, gentle nature. In 1889, _The +Wanderings of Oison_ established the fame of the young Irish lyrist. +Besides the title-poem here were “The Stolen Child” and “The Madness +of King Goll.” Influences of Tom Moore were traceable in a poem, with +lilting rhymes, like “Down by the Salley Gardens,” pictorial and +sentimental. In London, after the poems were published, Yeats was +still homesick, although he made congenial friends at the Cheshire +Cheese--Arthur Symons, Lionel Johnson, and W. E. Henley, who obtained +for him a commission to write some topics about Ireland for Chambers’ +_Encyclopedia_. His interest was strong in varied “cults” and forms of +symbolism which he revealed in his poems, _The Wind Among the Reeds_, +and the essays, _Ideas of Good and Evil_. + +Mr. Yeats is both lyrist and playwright; to the latter type of writing +he owes his recognition by students of the drama in every country; +the two qualities are interwoven in his plays. George Moore, Lady +Gregory, Forrest Reid, his critic and biographer, and others have +stressed his large part in the success, as well as the inception, of +the Abbey Theatre, “a gift of immense and national importance upon +Ireland.”[160] One would not minimize the work of Lady Gregory and +Douglas Hyde, of William Fay and Florence Farr and Miss Horniman, who +contributed as actors, playwrights, and financial supporters. The +assurance of this theater for performance of his plays gave incentive +to the dramatic impulse of Yeats. He created new plots and utilized +folk tales interwoven with fantasy and poetry. With the aid of Lady +Gregory and Edward Martyn, he won success with plays like _The Pot of +Broth_, _Cathleen ni Hoolihan_, _The King’s Threshold_, _The Land of +Heart’s Desire_, _Deirdre_ and _The Hour-Glass_. This last play, first +in prose, later in verse, is a masterpiece of the morality-play; the +Wise Man, faced with death within an hour, goes desperately in search +for “one person who believes in God and Heaven,” so that he may go +to Paradise. Only in Teague, the fool, who has learned his lessons, +_not_ in the schools of the Wise Men but in the _woods_, can he find +such assurance. In later versions of this play the author introduced a +strange Gaelic ballad. + +In his Notes to the volume of _Plays in Prose and Verse_, recently +reissued (New York, 1924), Mr. Yeats gives credit for the first use +of correct dialect to Synge’s _Riders to the Sea_ and Lady Gregory’s +_Spreading the News_. In this same Note he declares that his words +“never flow freely but when people speak in verse”: it need not be +rhymed verse, for some of the finest lines in _Deirdre_ and _The +King’s Threshold_ are _rhythmical_ but not in rhyme. In _The Land of +Heart’s Desire_ the poet-playwright’s words all “flow freely.” This +is a general favorite among his plays with professionals and amateurs +upon the stage. Forrest Reid may be extreme in praise when he calls +it “the most beautiful thing that has been done in our time,” for it +invites comparison with _The Sunken Bell_, _Peter Pan_, and _The Blue +Bird_ among poetic, fanciful plays. It lingers in memory, however, as +pictorial and dramatic, simple and beautiful in May Eve legends and +“fairy spell,” in the natural characters, well contrasted, of Maire +Bruin and her husband, Shawn, of Father Hart and the old parents by the +fireside. That is an exquisite couplet that Maire speaks to her sturdy +husband, when the fairy calls, + + O you are the great door-post of this house, + And I the red nasturtium climbing up.[161] + +_The Shadowy Waters_ is another symbolic play, with an undertone of +idealism. Begun when Yeats was young, it changed form often before the +poet was satisfied. Into this he has introduced varied types--the magic +harpist, the sailors, and Dectora, the restless, craving woman. The +king, Forgel, who cares not for gold or fame, voices some tenets of the +author’s creed in the lines: + + All would be well + Could we but give us wholly to the dreams, + And get into their world that to the sense + Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly + Among substantial things; for it is dreams + That lift us to the flowing, changing world + That the heart longs for.[162] + +Mr. Yeats has ever been a dreamer-poet; he said once that, if our +dreams could all come true, there might not be any poetry to be +written; so we are told by his biographer, Forrest Reid. Many of +his dreams are embodied in his lyrics, his plays, his short stories +and sketches, and his essays, _Ideas of Good and Evil_. _The Celtic +Twilight_ and _The Secret Rose_ contain some of his most fanciful, +poetic tales; “The Binding of the Hair” is an example of his highest +art in this form. Dreams of love and service are found in the volumes +of poems, like _The Wind Among the Reeds_, _In the Seven Woods_, +_The Wild Swans at Coole_, and _Responsibilities_. These separate +collections are now appearing in the uniform edition of his _Works_ +(Macmillan). Like Keats and William Blake, Mr. Yeats has been +criticized for the lack of human contacts; he has been accused of +more interest in and sympathy with waves and winds, with trees and +fairy-lore than with deep human emotions. His absorption emotionally +seems to be in lyrical and spiritual rhapsodies. In reading a love +lyric, like “A Poet to His Beloved,” one feels that the dreams and +the words are more ardent than the passion of love. One of the best +interpretive essays ever written upon Shelley is found in _Ideas of +Good and Evil_; these two poets were alike in many moods, in their +delicate, elusive fancies. In the exquisite diction of some of his +lines, and the fluctuating moods that affect his themes and modes of +expression, Mr. Yeats seems to me comparable to Thomas Bailey Aldrich +and such delicate lyrics, as “Nocturne” and “A Mood.” + +In these later years Mr. Yeats has carried his ideals into more +active life; he has undertaken _Responsibilities_ other than poetic +expression. He has been deeply concerned about the future of Ireland +and has been a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State. He has +become a leader in political and educational, as well as literary, +movements. Through the _Daily Express of Dublin_, he entered the lists +of combatants against Bernard Shaw and his adherents who maintained +that “poetry is a criticism of life.” In expanded thought upon this +idea, in _Literary Ideals in Ireland_, Mr. Yeats has prophesied that, +as the years pass, the function of poetry as _criticism_ will be +discarded; for it, will be substituted poetry as _revelation_ of life, +sometimes in tangible forms, more often in idealistic spirit. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[158] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1923. + +[159] John Sherman, pp. 88-90, and _W. B. Yeats: a Critical Study_ by +Forrest Reid, New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915. + +[160] _Op. cit._, p. 151. + +[161] _Land of Heart’s Desire_ by W. B. Yeats, copyright by W. B. +Yeats, New York, 1911; also in _Plays and Controversies_, New York, +1925. By permission of the Macmillan Co. + +[162] _Poems_ by W. B. Yeats, copyright by W. B. Yeats, New York, 1911, +1919, pp. 206, 207. By permission of the Macmillan Co. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HONORS TO POLISH FICTION--SIENKIEWICZ (1905), REYMONT (1924) + + + The prize of 1905 has been awarded: + + Sienkiewicz, Henryk, born 1846, died November 16, 1916: “because of + his splendid merits as an author of historical novels.”[163] + +As has been noted in previous chapters, in the Nobel prizes in +literature, exponents of the same kind of writing in a country have +been honored in successive generations. Björnson and Knut Hamsun, Heyse +and Hauptmann, Echegaray and Benavente, Anatole France and Rolland, +Henryk Sienkiewicz and Ladislaw Reymont are examples of such awards. +Another inference from the lists of winners is that the adjudicators +wish to recognize the aspirations and achievements of small countries +that are too often overlooked upon the map of world literature. Thus +Denmark and Switzerland, Ireland and Belgium have shared with the +so-called “great nations” of Europe. Twice has Poland been selected +for recognition. The very name suggests struggle and oppression on +one hand, hope and faith in ultimate right on the other. In spite of +tragic sadness, the messages of Poland in art and literature have been +vital and lofty in idealism. Some of the melancholy and passionate +yearning of later Poland has been expressed in the poets Michievicz +and Slowacki, who are allied in their moods with Chopin; the “Funeral +March” was described by Liszt as “the murmuring plaint of a whole +nation following the bier of its dearest hopes.”[164] In his book, +_Poland Reborn_, with keen analysis of advance in education and +literary opportunities, Roy Devereux says, “Henceforward there will not +be need for Polish men of letters like Henryk Sienkiewicz, who belongs +as much to Western Europe as to Poland, to seek the protection of a +foreign flag for their literary labours.”[165] To Sienkiewicz came +the Nobel award in 1905, a surprise to European critics and a blow to +Russian aspirants for the honor. + +[Illustration: + + _Copyright, 1912, by Little, Brown and Company_ + +HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ] + +Born in Lithuania, at Wola Okrzejska, in 1846, he was sixty when +he received the prize; he was already known by translation to +international readers. He belonged to a patrician family and was +educated at the University of Warsaw until political conditions, +following the revolution of 1863, caused him to leave Poland for +Russia, where he edited a journal at St. Petersburg. He wanted to know +more of the world so he traveled, in gypsy or Bohemian fashion, in +Southern Europe; in 1876 he came to America, to Los Angeles, seeking +to found there a Polish Commonwealth of Utopian type. He had written +tales and travel sketches under the pseudonym of “Litwos”--_Nobody +is a Prophet in his own Country_ and _From the Notebook of a Posen_. +He wrote impressions of America for a Warsaw newspaper; among these +earlier sketches were “Janko, the Musician,” “Across the Prairies,” +and “In Tartar Captivity.” A later tale, “The Old Bell-Ringer,” was +patriotic and wistful. + +In 1880 he returned to Poland where he faced sadness in the death +of his wife with the panacea of work upon his trilogy of historical +romances of Poland. For eight years he worked winters in Warsaw at +libraries and in his study, in summers in the Carpathian mountains. +The results were the long, imaginative but strictly historical tales +of _With Fire and Sword_, relating events from 1647 to 1651, _The +Deluge_, from 1652 to 1657, and _Pan Michael_, dealing with the Turkish +invasion and incidents from 1670 to 1674. This cycle of romances showed +scholarship and dramatic ability, especially in the first and third +stories of the trilogy. The background is panoramic; the dialogue is +natural in most places. The author visualized individuals and the +Polish people, under sentiments of distress, fear, love, conflict, +and aspiration. The qualities of honor, patriotism, and faith are +emphasized in these portrayals of Poland, under successive invasions of +Cossacks, Swedes, and Turks. He idealized Poland and gave hope to his +people. + +Modern Poland was the setting for his next series of tales, _Without +Dogma_ and _Children of the Soil_. The former is pathological and +tragic, the diary of Leon Ploszowski, aristocrat and bore, and his love +for his cousin, Aneila. The vices of modern society and self-indulgent +forces are in sharp contrast with the heroes of the trilogy. For many +years he had studied early Christianity with its opposing force, +Paganism. In 1896 he wrote his masterpiece, _Quo Vadis_, which has +been called “an epochal book.” In many translations it was familiar to +readers before the Nobel prize was given to its author. Of somewhat +similar trend was the later brief message, _Let Us Follow Him_, which +appeared in a single book and is included in the collection of stories +and sketches, _Hania_, in translations by C. W. Dynicwicz, Jeremiah +Curtin, and Casimir Gonski.[166] + +The confessed purpose of _Quo Vadis_ was to show “how God’s truth, +because it is the only Truth, conquered pagan might.” The sustained +interest in this religio-historical novel is not gained by melodrama +or sensational intrigues. It has breadth and dignity. The characters +vary in vividness but among the outstanding photographs are Paul +and Petronius, Ursus and Chilo, and the girl captive, Ligeia. He +called the tale “A Narrative of the Time of Nero.” The background was +convincing but Nero was not successfully drawn; even such a master +of characterization as Sienkiewicz could not make the Roman emperor +vitally real to modern readers but he introduced several dramatic +situations that center about his baffling personality. The question +of the title, “Whither goest thou?” was asked of the modern world of +unrest and discord, even as it was asked in the days of the apostles; +the author felt the need of guides of to-day to hold up the banner of +faith and service. + +Sympathy and spirituality were qualities found, not alone in _Quo +Vadis_ but in many other works in fiction by this Polish writer. +_Knights of the Cross_, recounting the struggle between the Poles and +Lithuanians against the Teutons, is a favorite with many readers. +_After Bread: a Story of Polish Emigrant Life in America_ (also +entitled, _For Daily Bread_ and _Peasants in Exile_) is typical of his +tales of emigration. _On the Field of Glory_ celebrates Sobieski’s +rescue of Vienna. Few authors have been so fortunate in English +translators as this Polish novelist. Jeremiah Curtin, S. A. Binion, +and S. C. de Soissons are among the best known; they have given +fine interpretations to his historical trilogy, his religious novel, +and such other stories as _On the Field of Glory_, _On the Bright +Shore_, _In Desert and Wilderness_, _That Third Woman_, and _In Vain_. +Sienkiewicz lived until 1916, alert and productive, ever exemplifying +the word that he used in a criticism of Zola, “The novel should +strengthen life, not undermine it; ennoble it, not defile it; bring +good tidings, not evil.” + + +LADISLAW STANISLAW REYMONT + + The prize of 1924 has been awarded: + + To Reymont, Ladislaw, born 1868: “For his great epic, _The + Peasants_.”[167] + +Again, a new generation has come “to hold the candle to light the dark +corners of the earth” in Poland, since Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote his +novels of historical and religious potency. A new group of authors +had come forward, many of them scarcely known outside their racial +confines. Among the better known of the representatives of “Young +Poland” is Ladislaw Reymont to whom the Nobel prize was given in +1924. A few weeks before this award was made public there appeared a +translation of the first part of the four-volume novel, _The Peasants_ +by Reymont, with the title, _Autumn_ (Knopf, New York, 1925). The +translator was Michael H. Dziewicki, Professor of English Literature +at the University of Cracow. The book attracted meager attention +until the Nobel prize was announced; then a furor of interest was +aroused in this first volume and those to appear since then--_Winter_, +_Spring_, and _Summer_. Reymont had visited America twice but escaped +much publicity. He had been translated into English as author of _The +Comedienne_ (1920), the tale of a girl who sought to be beautiful and +famous on the stage but ended in “philisticism.” Some of his short +stories had been included in a collection of Polish tales, in the +Oxford University series of _World Classics_ (1921). An extract from +his industrial novel, _The Promised Land_, was used in the _Anthology +of Modern Slavonic Literature_, edited by Paul Selver, in 1921. He has +written more than a score of novels, and is well known and commended in +Germany. Comparisons to Sienkiewicz reveal more pictorial skill, more +dramatic vigor like that of Dumas, in the older writer, but a realistic +force of surpassing effects in Reymont. + +His family was of the lower middle class. His father was a windmill +owner in Kobiala Wielka, then in Russian Poland, where the author was +born in 1868. He went to the village school and attended to the cattle +and farm work. One of the interpreters of Reymont to Americans has +been Rupert Hughes; in the translation of his Preface to the German +edition of _The Peasants_ we read,[168] “Reymont was born to be the +epic poet of the Polish village. He is, in spite of his foreign name, +a child of that strange, uncouth world where he began his life among +goose boys and cowherders, where he drove the herds of his father, the +village organist, and whence he has climbed to the rank of a beloved +and recognized poet, spending a large part of his life in Paris, the +centre of modern culture.” Reymont attended some of the gymnasiums, or +High Schools, but he was defiant to the Russian demand _not_ to speak +in Polish; sometimes he was expelled.[169] + +Several trades and occupations gave Reymont experiences which he +has used in some of his fiction. He was a clerk in a store, railway +employee, telegraph operator, and longed to travel like the hero +of _The Dreamer_. For a time he was actor in a small company whose +reflections are found in _The Comedienne_ and _Lilly_. He was, also, +a novitiate with the Paulist Fathers for a time at Czenstochowa. +_The Promised Land_, with scenes laid at Lotz and indications of +revolt against the capitalists and landowners (on the part of the +proletariat) was a forerunner of his agrarian novel, _The Peasants_. +The earlier book has been compared with Zola’s _Germinal_ in intense +naturalism. In this long story, _The Peasants_, Reymont became the +“mouthpiece of the peasant and rural elements.” Combined with Reymont’s +devotion to the peasant village as “protagonist,” is his passion for +Nature in her varied aspects; hence he made his divisions of the book +to show the four seasons. Like Thomas Hardy and George Meredith he uses +Nature as a vital personality in his story, aiding or restraining the +development of his leading characters, especially Yagna, who has been +called “a Polish Tess.” The English author is superior in condensation +and dramatic sympathy. + +To use the Polish peasant as literary material is no exclusive trait of +Reymont; he has been portrayed by other writers like Ladislaw Orkan, +Jan Kasprowicz, and Stanislaw Prybyszewsski. In _The Peasants_ the slow +movement is varied by scenes of intense emotion, like the marriage +festival in _Autumn_, or the death of Kuba, like the passionate quest +of Yagna and Antek in _Winter_, and the bitter fight between father and +son, husband and lover of Yagna, or the tragic, gruesome scene of the +death of the father, old Boryna, in the last pages of _Spring_. The +mob-attack upon Yagna, at the close of _Summer_, grips the reader and +makes a strong climax to the epical story. In addition to specific, +haunting situations, there are interwoven customs and legends and +a wonderful collection of Polish proverbs (a mine of literature!). +Passions of love and hate and revenge, the constant excess of vodka +and clouded minds, fear of landlord and slumbering revolt against the +loss of forest lands and oncoming industrial domination--such are +significant factors in this panoramic novel. In the background is the +dull color of the soil, the rank smells and fragrant odors of farmyards +and woods, sunsets of splendor, and terrifying storms. One of the +most poetic, idealistic passages is the last chapter in _Autumn_, the +passing of the soul of faithful Kuba, after his long years of service +and keen suffering: + + And higher yet it flew, and higher, yet higher, higher--yea, till it + set its feet-- + + Where man can hear no longer the voice of lamentation, nor the + mournful discords of all things that breathe-- + + Where only fragrant lilies exhale balmy odours, where fields of + flowers in bloom waft honey-sweet scents athwart the air; where + starry rivers roll over beds of a million hues; where night comes + never at all--[170] + +Many passages in this novel are repugnant to Anglo-Saxon æsthetic +tastes, if one is unable to assimilate the raw sordidness of many +modern stories of the soil, with the passages of emotional vigor and +poetic beauties. Reymont has revealed, in panoramic form, the life of +the Polish peasant, typified in the family and associates of Boryna; +he has treated his big theme with psychological insight, realistic +photography, and robust idealism. The first and second volumes seem +more spontaneous and dramatic than the later. He lacks condensation and +incisiveness. An excellent review of the four volumes by Vida Scudder +is in _The Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1925. + +Reymont knows America far better than Americans know him or his books, +but the discrepancy is being remedied. He enjoys friendship with many +men of affairs and letters here, including Rupert Hughes, whose story, +_What Will People Say?_ has been translated by Mme. Reymont, a fine +linguist, and published serially in the Warsaw _Gazeta_. Many critics +have noted the sincerity of Reymont as man and artist. + +In Chapter III, “Naturalism and Nationalism,” of the collected +lectures, on _Modern Polish Literature_, by Roman Dyboski, Professor at +Cracow University,[171] there are interesting comments upon Reymont’s +earlier work and his tendencies. His attempt at historical fiction, +following the lead of Sienkiewicz, was recorded in _The Year 1794_ but +it was, says Professor Dyboski, a failure, the “bewildering mass of +details obscured the outlines of the historical picture.” More adapted +to his analytical skill are the earlier novels, _Ferments_ and _The +Dreamer_ (largely autobiographical in background), and the later, more +impersonal tales that deal with anarchists and political conditions, +_The Vampire_ and _Opium Smokers_. Like other critics Professor +Dyboski ranks Stephen Zeromski as “supreme in the Polish novel +today.” He compares him to Sienkiewicz; he has the dramatic power and +concentration which Reymont lacks. Zeromski is “a social pessimist”; +like Sienkiewicz he was a short-story writer at first, then turned +to history for fictional themes, like _Lay of the Leader_ and has +written more recently of contemporaneous conditions. With his faults of +diffuseness and unevenness of structure, Reymont is gifted in depicting +the small and large interests of the Polish peasant, in revealing their +aspirations and dormant passion for freedom. + +As an example of “the novel of the soil,” so close to earth that +the reader often finds his senses are keen and that other faculties +are almost dormant, this epic by Reymont proclaims him a masterful +interpreter of peasant life. In every volume there are lapses of +interest and diffuseness. In retrospect, however, the many monotonous +pages will be forgotten and the outstanding scenes of passionate love, +hatred, suffering, and primitive ecstasy will remain in memory as +tributes to this second Polish novelist who is listed among the Nobel +prize winners in literature. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[163] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1905. + +[164] _Poland Reborn_ by Roy Devereux, London, 1922, p. 237. + +[165] _Ibid._, p. 225. + +[166] Chicago, 1898; Philadelphia, 1898. + +[167] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in 1924. + +[168] By permission of Rupert Hughes. + +[169] Interview with Dr. A. M. Nawench in _New York Times Review_, +November 30, 1924. + +[170] _The Peasants: Autumn_ from the Polish of Ladislaw St. Reymont, +New York, 1924. By permission of Alfred A. Knopf. + +[171] Given at King’s College; Oxford University Press, 1924. By +permission of _Oxford University Press_. + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS IN LITERATURE + + + PAGE + + 1901. SULLY-PRUDHOMME, RENÉ FRANÇOIS ARMAND 21 + + 1902. MOMMSEN, THEODOR 42 + + 1903. BJÖRNSON, BJÖRNSTJERNE 58 + + 1904. MISTRAL, FRÉDÉRIC, shared with 31 + + 1904. ECHEGARAY, JOSÉ 239 + + 1905. SIENKIEWICZ, HENRYK 264 + + 1906. CARDUCCI, GIOSUÈ 72 + + 1907. KIPLING, RUDYARD 85 + + 1908. EUCKEN, RUDOLF 48 + + 1909. LAGERLÖF, SELMA 104 + + 1910. HEYSE, PAUL 124 + + 1911. MAETERLINCK, MAURICE 148 + + 1912. HAUPTMANN, GERHART 133 + + 1913. TAGORE, RABINDRANATH 159 + + NO AWARD IN 1914 + + 1915. ROLLAND, ROMAIN 175 + + 1916. HEIDENSTAM, VERNER VON 189 + + 1917. PONTOPPIDAN, HENRIK, shared with 197 + + 1917. GJELLERUP, KARL 201 + + NO AWARD IN 1918 + + 1919. SPITTELER, CARL 205 + + 1920. HAMSUN, KNUT 213 + + 1921. FRANCE, ANATOLE 224 + + 1922. BENAVENTE, JACINTO 247 + + 1923. YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER 253 + + 1924. REYMONT, LADISLAW 269 + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY OF “NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS IN LITERATURE” + + +The compiler of this bibliography has not attempted to make an +exhaustive list of writings of the several prize winners; the aim is +to suggest an adequate reading list, to supplement the studies of +individual authors and to stimulate further research. As this book is +intended, especially, for English and American readers, the foreign +editions are not cited, if there is any adequate translation available; +in a few cases, the works must be read in the original language. + +The bibliography has been compiled largely with the assistance of +librarians at the Widener Library of Harvard University, so that the +books listed will be found in the card catalogue there, and at the +Library of Congress. In isolated cases, the _data_ have been furnished +by individual writers and translators. The authors are here listed in +the order of the awards, with dates appended; in the Index they are +given alphabetically. + + +SULLY-PRUDHOMME (1901) + + _Œuvres_: 5 Vols. (Paris, 1869-1901). + + Selected poems in _Anthology of French Poetry_, edited by H. + Carrington (London and New York, 1900). + + Selected poems in _The Modern Book of French Verse_, edited by Albert + Boni (New York, 1920). + + _Journal Intime_ (Paris, 1922). + + _Le testament poétique_, 4th ed. (Paris, 1901). + + _La vraie religion selon Pascal_ (Paris, 1905). + + _Que sais-je? Examen de conscience_ (Paris, 1896). + + _On Life and Letters_ by Anatole France (“Three Poets”), translated + by A. W. Evans, first series (London and New York, 1922). + + _Punch and Judy and Other Essays_ by Maurice Baring (New York, 1924). + + _Studies in Literature_: “Some French Writers of Verse” by Edward + Dowden (London, 1892). + + +MOMMSEN (1902) + + _The History of Rome_, translated with the author’s sanction and + additions by Rev. William P. Dickson (London, 1862, 1885; New York, + 1869, 1908); (_Everyman’s Library_, London and New York, 1911, + 1916); 5 Vols. (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1903). + + _Rome, from Earliest Time to 40 B. C._, edited by Arthur C. Howland + (Philadelphia, 1906). + + _The Provinces of the Roman Empire, from Cæsar to Diocletian_, + translated with the author’s sanction and additions by Rev. William + P. Dickson (New York, 1887; London and New York, 1909). + + _Historical Essays_ by E. A. S. Freeman, second series, 3rd ed. (New + York and London, 1889). + + _Some Eighteenth Century Byways and Other Essays_ by J. Buchan + (London, 1908). + + _Theodor Mommsen: His Life and Work_ by Wm. W. Fowler (Edinburgh, + 1909). + + +BJÖRNSON (1903) + + _Novels_, in 13 Vols., edited by Edmund Gosse (London and New York, + 1895-1909). + + _Novels_, in 3 Vols., translated by R. B. Anderson, American edition + (Boston, 1881). + + _Plays_, 2 series, translated by Edwin Björkman (New York, 1913, + 1914). + + _Plays_, 2 Vols., translated by R. Farquharson Sharp (_Everyman’s + Library_, London and New York, 1912). + + _Poems and Songs_, translated from the Norwegian in the original + meters, by Arthur Hubbell Palmer (New York, 1915). + + _Arne_, and _The Fisher Maiden_, translated by Walter Low, with + introduction (London and New York, 1894). + + _Mary_, translated by Mary Morison (London and New York, 1910). + + _Mary, Queen of Scots_, translated by August Sahlberg (Chicago, 1912). + + _When the New Wine Blooms_, translated by Lee M. Hollander (_Poet + Lore_, Boston, 1911). + + _The Heritage of the Kurts_, translated by Cecil Fairfax (London, + 1908). + + _The Wise Knut_, translated by Bernard Stahl (New York, 1909). + + _Adventures in Criticism_ by A. T. Quiller-Couch, rev. ed. (New York, + 1924). + + _Björnstjerne Björnson_ by William Morton Payne (Chicago, 1910). + + _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg Brandes, rev. + ed. (New York, 1924). + + _Northern Studies_ by Edmund Gosse (London, 1890). + + +MISTRAL (1904; shared with Echegaray) + + _Œuvres de Frédéric Mistral, texte et traduction_ (Paris, 1887-1912). + + _Le poème du Rhône, xii chants, texte, provençal et traduction + française_ (Paris, 1897). + + _Mireille, poème provençal, illustré par Jean Droit_ (Paris, 1923). + + _Mireio: a Provençal Poem_, translated by Harriet Waters Preston + (Boston, 1872; London, 1890). + + _Mireio_, from the original Provençal, under the author’s sanction, + translated by C. H. Grant: “An English Version of Mr. Frédéric + Mistral’s _Mireio_” (Avignon, 1867). + + _Mireille; a Pastoral Epic of Provence_, translated by H. Crichton + (London, 1868). + + _Memoirs of Mistral_, rendered into English by Constance Elisabeth + Maud; lyrics from the Provençal by Alma Strettell (Mrs. Lawrence + Harrison) (New York, 1907). + + Selections from _Mireio_, _Calendau_, and _Nerto_, translated by + Harriet Waters Preston, in _Library of the World’s Best Literature_, + edited by C. D. Warner, Vol. 17. + + _Frédéric Mistral, Poet and Leader in Provence_, by C. A. Downer (New + York, 1901). + + +ECHEGARAY (1904; shared with Mistral) + + _The Great Galeoto: Folly or Saintliness_, translated with + introduction by Hannah Lynch (Boston, 1895). + + _Madman or Saint_, translated by Ruth Lansing (_Poet Lore_, Boston, + 1912). + + _Mariana_, translated by James Graham (Boston, 1895). + + _Mariana_, translated by F. Sarda and C. D. S. Wupperman (New York, + 1909). + + _The Son of Don Juan_, translated by James Graham (Boston, 1895). + + _The Street Singer_, translated by John Garrett Underhill (_Drama_, + Chicago, 1917); included in + + _25 Short Plays_, edited by Frank Shay (New York, 1924). + + _Always Ridiculous_, translated by T. W. Gilkyson (_Poet Lore_, + Boston, 1916). + + _The World and His Wife_ (an American adaptation of _The Great + Galeoto_) by C. F. Neidlinger (New York, 1908). + + _Representative Continental Dramas_, edited by Montrose J. Moses + (Boston, 1924). + + _Masterpieces of Modern Spanish Drama_, edited by Barrett H. Clark + (London and New York, 1917). + + _A Study of the Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark (London and New + York, 1925). + + _The Modern Drama in Europe_ by Storm Jameson (London and New York, + 1920). + + _Main Currents of Spanish Literature_ by J. D. M. Ford (New York, + 1919). + + _The Drama of Transition_ by Isaac Goldberg (Cincinnati, 1922). + + _Masques and Mummers_ by C. F. Neidlinger (New York, 1899). + + _Dramatic Opinions and Essays_ by G. Bernard Shaw (London and New + York, 1907). + + _The Modern Drama_ by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York, 1915). + + +SIENKIEWICZ (1905) + + Authorized and unabridged translations from the Polish by Jeremiah + Curtin: _With Fire and Sword_; _The Deluge_; _Pan Michael_; _Quo + Vadis_; _Without Dogma_; _In Desert and Wilderness_ (Little, Brown + & Co., Boston, 1890-1912). + + _Quo Vadis_, translated by S. A. Binion and S. Malevsky + (Philadelphia, 1897). + + _Hania_, short tales, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, 1897). + + _Let Us Follow Him_, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, 1897). + + _On the Field of Glory_, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, 1906). + + _On the Bright Shore_, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, 1898). + + _On the Bright Shore_, translated by S. C. de Soissons (New York, + 1897). + + _Pan Michael_, translated by S. A. Binion (New York, 1898, 1905). + + _The Irony of Life_ (_Children of the Soil_), translated by N. M. + Babad (New York, 1900). + + _In Desert and Wilderness_, translated by Max A. Drezmal (Boston, + 1912, 1923). + + _After Bread (For Daily Bread: Peasants in Exile)_ translated by + Vatslaf Z. Hlasko and Thomas H. Bullick (New York, 1897). + + _The Third Woman_, translated by N. M. Babad (New York, 1898). + + _Lillian Morris and Other Stories_, translated by Jeremiah Curtin + (Boston, 1895). + + _Modern Polish Literature_, lectures by Roman Dyboski, Ch. II (Oxford + University Press, 1924). + + +CARDUCCI (1906) + + _Carducci: a Selection of his Poems_, with three introductions, etc., + translated by G. L. Bickersteth (London, 1913). + + _Poems by Carducci_, translated with an introduction by Maud Holland + (New York, 1907). + + _Poems of Giosuè Carducci_, with verse translations, notes and + introduction by Frank Sewall (New York, 1892). + + _Poems of Italy_, selections from the odes of Giosuè Carducci, + translated by M. W. Arms (New York, 1906). + + _Italy from the Poems of Joshua Carducci_, translated by E. A. Tribe + (Florence, 1912). + + _A Selection from the Poems of Giosuè Carducci_, translated with + biographical introduction by Emily A. Tribe (London and New York, + 1921). + + _Selections from Carducci_, prose and poetry, with introductory notes + and vocabulary by A. Marinoni (New York, 1913). + + _The Rime Nuove_ of Giosuè Carducci, translated from the Italian by + Laura Fullerton Gilbert (Boston, 1916). + + _Italian Influences_ by Eugene Schuyler (New York, 1901). + + _Italica; Studies in Italian Life and Letters_ by William Roscoe + Thayer (Boston, 1908). + + _Giosuè Carducci_ by Orlo Williams (London, 1914). + + “The Poetry of Carducci,” (_Edinburgh Review_, April, 1909). + + +KIPLING (1907) + + _Kipling’s Collected Works_, 23 Vols., Outward Bound Edition (Charles + Scribner’s Sons; New York, 1897-1923). + + _Writings in Prose and Verse_, 28 Vols., Pocket Edition (Doubleday, + Page & Co., Garden City, New York, 1898-1923). + + The New World Edition, 13 Vols. (Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City; + Toronto). + + _Rudyard Kipling’s Verse_; Inclusive Edition (Garden City, New York, + 1924). + + _The Years Between_ (New York, 1919). + + _American Notes_ (Boston, 1899). + + _Independence_, Rectorial Address at St. Andrews (London and New + York, 1925). + + _Letters of Travel_ (London and New York, 1920). + + _Land and Sea Tales for Boys and Girls (for Scouts and Scoutmasters)_ + (London and New York, 1923). + + _The Irish Guards in the Great War_ (London and New York, 1923). + + _The Fringes of the Fleet_ (London and New York, 1915). + + _The Second Jungle Book_, decorated by John Lockwood Kipling (New + York, 1914). + + _Selected Stories from Kipling_, edited by William Lyon Phelps (New + York, 1919, 1921). + + _The Eyes of Asia_ (Garden City; New York, 1923). + + _Mine Own People_, introduction by Henry James (New York, 1899). + + _Essays in Little_ by Andrew Lang (London and New York, 1899). + + _Heretics_ by Gilbert K. Chesterton (London and New York, 1919). + + _Rudyard Kipling: a Criticism_ by Richard Le Gallienne (London and + New York, 1900). + + _Shelburne Essays_, series II, by Paul Elmer More (New York, 1906). + + +EUCKEN (1908). + + _Fundamental Concepts of Modern Philosophic Thought_, critically + and historically considered, translated by M. Stuart Phelps, with + introduction by Noah Porter (New York, 1880). + + _Can We Still Be Christians?_ translated by Lucy Judge Gibson (New + York, 1914). + + _Christianity and the New Idealism_, translated by Lucy Judge Gibson + and W. R. Boyce Gibson (London and New York, 1909, 1912). + + _Collected Essays of Rudolf Eucken_, translated and edited by Meyrick + Booth (New York and London, 1914). + + _Intellectual Movements of the Present Day_, translated by Meyrick + Booth (London, 1912). + + _Knowledge and Life_, translated by Tudor Jones (London and New York, + 1913). + + _The Truth of Religion_, translated by Tudor Jones (New York, 1911). + + _The Meaning and Value of Life_, translated by Lucy Judge Gibson and + W. R. Boyce Gibson (London and New York, 1909, 1911). + + _The Problem of Human Life, as Viewed by the Great Thinkers from + Plato to the Present Time_, translated by W. S. Hough and W. R. B. + Gibson (New York, 1909, 1914). + + _Life’s Basis and Life’s Ideal_, translated by Alban G. Widgery + (London, 1912). + + _Naturalism or Idealism?_ (Nobel lecture) translated by Alban G. + Widgery (Cambridge, England, 1912). + + _Deems Lectures_, delivered in 1913 at New York University, + translated by Margaret von Seidewitz (New York, 1913), English + edition by W. Tudor Jones (London, 1913), entitled, _Present-Day + Ethics in their Relation to the Spiritual Life_. + + _Main Currents of Modern Thought_, translated by Meyrick Booth + (London, 1912). + + _Socialism; an Analysis_, translated by Joseph McCabe (London and New + York, 1922). + + _Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels_ by himself; translated by + Joseph McCabe (London and New York, 1921, 1922). + + _Rudolf Eucken: His Philosophy and Influence_ by Meyrick Booth (New + York, 1913). + + _Eucken and Bergson; Their Significance for Christian Thought_ by E. + Hermann (Boston, 1912). + + +SELMA LAGERLÖF (1909) + + The Northland Edition of Selma Lagerlöf’s _Works_, 11 Vols. + (Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York). + + _Christ Legends_, translated by Velma Swanston Howard (New York, + 1908). + + _Gösta Berling’s Saga_, or _The Story of Gösta Berling_, translated + by Pauline Bancroft Flach (London; New York, 1910, 1918). + + _Invisible Links_, translated by Pauline Bancroft Flach (Boston, + 1899; New York). + + _From a Swedish Homestead_, translated by Jessie Brochner (London and + New York, 1901). + + _Jerusalem_, translated by Velma Swanston Howard (Garden City, New + York, 1915, 1918). + + _Jerusalem_, translated by Jessie Brochner (London, 1903). + + _Holy City: Jerusalem II_, translated by Velma Swanston Howard + (Garden City, New York, 1918). + + _Liliecrona’s Home_, translated by Anna Barwell (New York, 1914). + + _Mårbacka_, translated by Velma Swanston Howard (Garden City, New + York, 1924). + + _Miracles of Antichrist_, translated by Pauline Bancroft Flach + (Boston, 1899, Garden City, New York). + + _The Emperor of Portugallia_, translated by Velma Swanston Howard + (Garden City, New York, 1916). + + _The Girl from the Marshcroft_, translated by Velma Swanston Howard + (New York, 1916). + + _The Outcast_, translated by W. W. Worster (Garden City, New York, + 1922). + + _The Treasure_, translated by Arthur G. Chater (Garden City, New + York, 1925). + + _The Wonderful Adventures of Nils_; _Further Adventures of Nils_, + translated by Velma Swanston Howard (Garden City, New York, 1907, + 1911, 1920). + + _Selma Lagerlöf: The Woman, Her Work, Her Message_ by Harry E. Maule + (Garden City, New York, 1917). + + _Voices of Tomorrow_ by Edwin Björkman (New York, 1913). + + +PAUL HEYSE (1910) + + _Deutschen Novellenschatz_, 24 Vols., edited by Max Lentz (New York, + 1899). + + _L’Arrabiata_, edited by Mary A. Frost with notes and introduction + (New York, 1896). + + _L’Arrabiata_, translated by Vivian Elsie Lyon (New York, 1916). + + _L’Arrabiata_, edited by W. W. Flower (Ann Arbor, 1922). + + _At the Ghost Hour_ and _The Fair Abigail_, translated by Frances A. + Van Santford (New York, 1894). + + _A Divided Heart and Other Stories_, translated by Constance S. + Copeland (New York, 1894). + + _Mary of Magdala_, translated by W. Winter (New York, 1904). + + _Barbarossa and Other Tales_ by L. C. S. (London, 1874). + + _Mary of Magdala_, an historical and romantic drama in 5 acts; + adapted in England by Lionel Vale (New York, 1902). + + _Tales from the German of Paul Heyse_ (D. Appleton & Co., New York, + 1879). + + Study of Paul Heyse in _German Classics_, edited by Kuno Francke + (German Publishing Co., New York). + + _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_ by Georg Brandes (New + York, new ed., 1925). + + +MAETERLINCK (1911) + + _Works of Maurice Maeterlinck_, 27 Vols., in two editions, cloth and + leather (Dodd, Mead & Co.; London and New York) includes essays, + plays, poems, children’s books; interpreted by several translators, + including Alfred Sutro, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, Bernard Miall, + Montrose J. Moses. + + _Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck_, translated and edited with + introduction, by Richard Hovey (Chicago, 1894, 2 vols.; New York, + 1911). + + _Joyzelle_, translated by Charlotte Porter (_Poet Lore_, xv, iii, + Boston). + + _Three Little Dramas for Marionettes_, translated by Alfred Sutro and + William Archer (Chicago and London, 1899). + + _Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck_ by Jethro Bithell (London, + 1913). + + _Maurice Maeterlinck: Poet and Philosopher_ by MacDonald Clark (New + York, 1916). + + _The Symbolist Movement in Literature_ by Arthur Symons (London and + New York, 1899; New York, 1917). + + _Maurice Maeterlinck: A Study_ by Montrose J. Moses (New York, 1911). + + _Dramatists of Today_ by E. E. Hale, Jr. (New York, 1905). + + _Iconoclasts_ by James Huneker (New York, 1905). + + _Varied Types_ by Gilbert K. Chesterton (New York, 1905). + + _Essays on Modern Dramatists_ by William Lyon Phelps (New York, 1921). + + _A Study of the Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark (New York, 1925). + + _The Modern Drama_ by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York, 1915). + + +HAUPTMANN (1912) + + _The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann_, 8 Vols., edited by Ludwig + Lewisohn, translations by Lewisohn and others (Huebsch, New York, + 1906-1925). + + _Hannele_, translated by William Archer (London, 1894). + + _Hannele_, translated by Charles Henry Meltzer (New York, 1908). + + _The Assumption of Hannele_, translated by G. S. Bryan (_Poet Lore_, + Boston, 1909). + + _The Sunken Bell_, translated with introduction by Charles Henry + Meltzer (New York, 1899; Garden City, 1914). + + _The Sunken Bell_; _Elga_; _And Pippa Dances_, all translated by Mary + Harned (_Poet Lore_, Boston, 1898, 1906, 1909). + + _The Weavers_, translated by Mary Morison (included in _Chief + Contemporary Dramatists_ edited by Thomas H. Dickinson; Boston, + 1915). + + _Parsival_, translated by Oakley Williams (New York, 1915). + + _The Coming of Peace_, translated by Janet A. Church and C. E. + Wheeler (Chicago and London, 1900). + + _The Fool in Christ: Emanuel Quint_, a novel, translated by Thomas + Seltzer (New York, 1911). + + _Phantom_, a novel translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan (New York, + 1922). + + _Atlantis_, a novel translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer (Huebsch, + New York, 1912). + + _The Island of the Great Mother_, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir + (Huebsch, The Viking Press, New York, 1925). + + _Gerhart Hauptmann: His Life and His Work_ by Karl Holl (London, + 1913). + + _Studies in Modern German Literature_ by Otto Heller (Boston and New + York, 1905). + + _Glimpses of Modern German Culture_ by Kuno Francke (New York, 1898). + + _Naturalism in the Recent German Drama_, with special reference to + Gerhart Hauptmann, by Alfred Stoeckius (New York, 1903). + + _Gerhart Hauptmann and John Galsworthy: a Parallel_ by W. R. + Trumbauer (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1917). + + _Nature Background in the Dramas of Hauptmann_, by Mary Agnes Quimby + (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1918). + + _A Study of the Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark (New York, 1925). + + +RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1913) + + _Writings of Rabindranath Tagore_, 20 Vols. (The Macmillan Co., + London and New York). + + _Gitanjali_, translated by author, with introduction by W. B. Yeats + (London and New York, 1913, 1916). + + _The Crescent Moon: Child-Poems_ translated from original Bengali by + author (New York, 1913, 1916). + + _Japan; a Lecture_ (London and New York, 1916). + + _Nationalism in the West and Japan_ (London and New York, 1917). + + _My Reminiscences_ (London and New York, 1917). + + _Rabindranath Tagore: a Biographical Study_ by Earnest Rhys (New + York, 1915). + + _Rabindranath Tagore: the Man and His Poetry_ by B. K. Roy (New York, + 1915). + + _Glimpses of Bengal_, selected from letters of Rabindranath Tagore + (London and New York, 1921). + + _Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One with the Universal Being_ + (comparison of Tagore and Gandhi) by Romain Rolland, translated by + Catherine D. Groth (New York, 1924). + + _The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore_ by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan + (London, 1918). + + +ROMAIN ROLLAND (1915: no award in 1914) + + Many of the novels and studies by Rolland are published by Henry Holt + and Co., (New York). + + _Jean-Christophe_, 3 Vols., translated by Gilbert Cannan (London and + New York, 1910, 1916). + + _The Fourteenth of July and Danton_, authorized translation by + Barrett H. Clark (New York, 1918). + + _Pierre and Luce_, translated by Charles De Kay (New York, 1922). + + _Tolstoy_, translated by Bernard Miall (London and New York, 1911). + + _The People’s Theatre_, translated by Barrett H. Clark (London and + New York, 1918, 1919). + + _The Wolves; a Play_, translated by Barrett H. Clark (Drama, 1917, + No. 32). + + _The Life of Michael Angelo_, translated by Frederic Lees (London and + New York, 1912). + + _Colas Breugnon_, translated by Katherine Miller (New York, 1919). + + _Clerambault: the Story of an Independent Spirit during the War_, + translated by Katherine Miller (London and New York, 1921). + + _Liluli_, with wood engravings by Frans Masereel (New York, 1920). + + _Above the Battle_, translated by C. K. Ogden (Chicago, 1916). + + _Above the Battlefield_, with introduction by G. L. Dickinson + (Cambridge, England, 1914). + + _The Forerunner_, a sequel to _Above the Battle_, translated by Eden + and Cedar Paul (New York, 1920). + + _Some Musicians of Former Days_, translated by Mary Blaiklock (London + and New York, 1915). + + _Annette and Silvie_ (_The Soul Enchanted: L’âme enchantée_) + translated by Ben Ray Redman (New York, 1925). + + _Summer_, translated by Eleanor Strinson and Wyck Brooks (New York, + 1925). + + _Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One with the Universal Being_, + translated by Catherine D. Groth (London and New York, 1924). + + _Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work_ by Stefan Zweig, translated by + Eden and Cedar Paul (New York, 1921). + + +HEIDENSTAM (1916) + + _Sweden’s Laureate: Selected Poems_, translated with introduction by + Charles Wharton Stork (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1919). + + _The Charles Men_, translated by Charles Wharton Stork, with + introduction by Fredrik Böök (New York, 1920). + + _A King and His Campaigners_, translated by Axel Tegnier (London, + 1902). + + _The Soothsayer_, translated by Karoline M. Knudsen (Boston, 1919). + + _The Birth of God_, translated by Karoline M. Knudsen (Boston, 1920). + + _The Tree of the Folkungs_, translated by Arthur G. Chater (New York, + 1925). + + +HENRIK PONTOPPIDAN (1917) + + _Reisebilder aus Dänemark_ (1890). + + _The Apothecary’s Daughter_, translated into English by C. L. Nielson + (London, 1890). + + _Emanuel or Children of the Soil_, From the Danish, translated by + Mrs. Edgar Lucas (London, 1896). + + _The Promised Land_, From the Danish, translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas + (with illustrations by Nellie Ericsen) (London, 1896). + + _Hans Im Glück_, Ein Romane, ubersetzung von Mathilde Mann: I, II + (Leipzig, 1906). + + _Der alte Adam_, zwei Roman, ubersetzung von Rich. Guttmann (München, + 1912). + + _Aus jungen Tagen_, ubersetzung von Mathilde Mann (Leipzig, 1913). + + +KARL GJELLERUP (1917) + + _Die Opferfeuer_, Ein Legenden-Stück (Leipzig, 1903). + + _Der Pilger Kamanita_, Ein Legendenroman (Frankfurt, 1907). + + _The Pilgrim Kamanita_, a legendary romance, translated by John E. + Logie (London, 1911). + + _Das Weib des Vollendeten_, Ein Legendenroman (Frankfurt, 1907). + + _Reif für das Leben_ (Jena, 1916). + + _Der goldene Zweig_, Dichtung und Novellenkranz aus der Zeit des + Kaisers Tiberius (Leipzig, 1917). + + _Minna_, a novel, translated by C. L. Neilson (London, 1913). + + _Die Gottesfreundin_ (Leipzig, 1918). + + _An der Grenze_, Roman (Leipzig, 1919). + + _Romulus_; ubersetzung von Margarete Böttger (Leipzig, 1924). + +NOTE: the bibliographical lists above on Pontoppidan and Gjellerup +have been prepared for the compiler through the courtesy of the Royal +Library (the Danish National Library) of Copenhagen. + + +CARL SPITTELER (1919: no award in 1918) + + _Prometheus und Epimetheus_ (Jena 1881, 1924). + + _Balladen_ (Zürich, 1906). + + _Imago_ (Jena, 1906, 1919). + + _Olympian Spring_ (_Olympischer Frühling_) (Jena, 1900, 1911, 1920). + + _Two Little Misogynists_, translated by Mme. la Vicomtesse Le + Roquette-Buisson, with decorations by A. Helene Carter (New York, + 1922). + + _Meine Frühesten Erlebnisse_: or _My Earliest Experiences_ (Jena, + 1914, 1920). + + Study of Carl Spitteler in _The German Classics_, edited by Kuno + Francke (Vol. XIV: New York, 1914). With some translations. + + _Studies from Ten Literatures_ by Ernest Boyd (New York, 1925). + + _Carl Spitteler_: Monograph (in German) by Eugen Diederichs Verlag in + Jena. + + _Contemporary Review_, January, 1920. + + +KNUT HAMSUN (1920) + + The writings of Hamsun, in American edition, are issued largely by + Alfred A. Knopf (New York). + + _Hunger_, translated by George Egerton (pseudonym) with introduction + by Edwin Björkman (London, 1899, New York, 1920). + + _Pan_, translated by W. W. Worster (New York, 1921). + + _Victoria_, translated by Arthur G. Chater (New York, 1923). + + _Children of the Time_, translated by J. S. Scott (New York, 1924). + + _Dreamers_, translated by W. W. Worster (New York, 1921). (English + title, _Mothwise_, London, 1921). + + _Shallow Soil_, translated by Carl Christian Hylested (London and New + York, 1914). + + _Growth of the Soil_, translated by W. W. Worster (London and New + York, 1921). + + _Segelfoss Town_, translated by J. S. Scott (London, 1921, New York, + 1925). + + _In the Grip of Life_ (play), translated by Graham and Tristam Rawson + (New York, 1924). + + _Knut Hamsun: a Study_ by Hanna Astrup Larsen (New York, 1922). + + _Knut Hamsun; His Personality and His Outlook upon Life_ by Josef + Wiehr, _Smith College Studies in Modern Languages_ (Northampton, + 1922). + + +ANATOLE FRANCE (1921) + + The writings of Anatole France are appearing, in the Tours Edition, + issued by Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. + + Another edition, already complete, by the same publishers, is the + Library Edition (31 Vols.). + + Other volumes by same publishers, include: + + _At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque_, illustrated by Frank C. Pape + (New York). + + _Honey Bee; a Fairy Story for Children_, translated by Mrs. John + Lane, illustrated by Florence Lundborg. + + _Joan of Arc_, translated by Winifred Stephens; 2 Vols. + + _On Life and Letters_, Series I and II translated by A. W. Evans, + Series III translated by D. B. Stewart, Series IV translated by + Bernard Miall (London and New York, 1923-25). + + _Anatole France; the Man and His Work_ by James Lewis May (London and + New York, 1924). + + _The Opinions of Anatole France_, recorded by Paul Gsell (London and + New York, 1924). + + _Anatole France Himself: a Boswellian Record_ by Jean-Jacques + Brousson (Philadelphia, 1925). + + _French Novelists of Today_ by Winifred Stephens (London and New + York, 1908). + + _Egoists_ by James Huneker (New York, 1909). + + _Studies in Ten Literatures_ by Ernest Boyd (New York, 1925). + + _Those Europeans_ by Sisley Huddlestone (London and New York, 1924). + + +BENAVENTE (1922) + + _Plays_ by Jacinto Benavente, translated with introduction by John + Garrett Underhill; four series, including his best plays (Charles + Scribner’s Sons, New York: 1917, 1925). + + _The Bonds of Interest_ is reprinted in _Chief Contemporary + Dramatists_, Series II, edited by Thomas H. Dickinson (Boston, + 1921), and, also, in _Representative Continental Dramas_, edited by + Montrose J. Moses (Boston, 1924). + + _His Widow’s Husband_, translated by John Garrett Underhill, is + reprinted in _Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays_, edited by Shay and + Loving (Cincinnati, 1920). + + _Nobody Knows What He Wants_, or _The Dancer and the Doer_ (1925). + + _The Smile of Mona Lisa_, translated by John Armstrong Herman, + _Contemporary Dramatists_ Series (Boston, 1915, 1919). + + _Jacinto Benavente_ by Walter Starkie (Oxford University Press, 1925). + + _Modern Drama in Europe_ by Storm Jameson (New York, 1920). + + _The Drama of Transition_ by Isaac Goldberg (Cincinnati, 1922). + + _Main Currents of Spanish Literature_ by J. D. W. Ford (New York, + 1919). + + _A Study of the Modern Drama_ by Barrett H. Clark (New York, 1925). + + +YEATS (1923) + + The writings of Yeats; plays, poems, essays and “controversies” are + issued in varied editions by the Macmillan Co., London and New York. + + _John Sherman and Dhoya_, by Ganconagh (pseudonym) (London and New + York, 1891). + + _Reveries over Childhood and Youth_ (New York, 1916). + + _Plays in Prose and Verse_, written for the Irish Theatre, and + generally with the help of a friend (London, 1922; New York, 1924). + + _The Land of Heart’s Desire_ (London, 1894; Boston, 1894; Chicago, + 1894; Portland, Maine, 1913). + + _Responsibilities_ (London and New York, 1916). + + _Selected Poems_ (New York, 1921). + + _William Butler Yeats; a Critical Study_ by Forrest Reid (New York, + 1915). + + _Twenty-Five Years; Reminiscences_ by Katherine Tynan Hinkson (New + York, 1914). + + _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival_ by Horatio + Sheafe Kraus (London, 1905). + + _Studies in Prose and Verse_ by Arthur Symons (London, 1904). + + _William Butler Yeats; a Literary Study_ by C. Wrenn (London, 1920). + + +REYMONT (1924) + + _The Peasants: Autumn; Winter; Spring; Summer_, translated by Michael + H. Dziewicki (Knopf, New York, 1924-1925). + + _The Comedienne_, translated by Edmund Obecuy (Putnams, New York, + 1920). + + Tales by Reymont in Oxford University _World’s Classics_ (1921). + + Extracts from _The Promised Land_ in _Modern Slavonic Literature_, + edited by Paul Selver (London, 1921). + + _Modern Polish Literature_; A Course of Lectures at King’s College, + London, by Roman Dyboski Ch. III (Cambridge, England, 1924). + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbey Theatre, The, 259 + + _Above the Battle_, 185 + + _Across the Prairies_, 266 + + _Actions and Reactions_, 95, 101 + + Adams, Mme. Juliette, 7 + + _Adventures in Criticism_, 65, 66 + + _After Bread_, 268 + + Ahlsell, Karoline Henriette, 2 + + Aix, 32 + + Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 262 + + _Alladine and Palomides_, 152 + + _Always Ridiculous_, 245 + + _Ame Enchantée, L’_, 186 + + American-Scandinavian Foundation, 193 + + _American-Scandinavian Review_, 198, 201, 202 + + _Amethyst Ring, The_, 225, 233 + + Anatole France, 25, 224-238, 264 + + _Anatole France Himself_, 226, 227, 230 + + _Anatole France: The Man and His Work_, 25, 229 + + _And Pippa Dances_, 136, 145 + + Andersen, Hans Christian, 197 + + Anderson, Vilhelm, 198 + + _Annette and Sylvie_, 186 + + _Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature_, 270 + + _Appointment, The_, 29 + + Archer, William, 139 + + _Ariadne and Blue Beard_, 157 + + Ariosto, 33 + + Arles, 36, 37, 39 + + _Arme Heinrich, Der_, 143 + + _Arne_, 20, 61, 62, 66 + + _Arrabiata, L’_, 128, 130 + + _Art of Versification, The_, 27 + + _Assumption of Hannele, The_, 135, 139 + + _Atlantis_, 146, 206 + + _At the Gates of the Kingdom_, 219 + + _At the Ghost Hour_, 129 + + _At the Hilt of the Sword_, 240 + + _At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque_, 225, 233 + + _August_, 1914, 192 + + _Autumn_, 270, 272, 273 + + _Autumnal Roses_, 248 + + Avignon, 32 + + + Baku, 2 + + Balestier, Caroline, 93 + + Balestier, Wolcott, 93, 94 + + _Balladen_, 208 + + Balzac, 129 + + _Bankrupt, The_, 67, 68 + + _Banquet of Wild Beasts, The_, 247 + + Baring, Maurice, 30 + + Barrès, Maurice, 235 + + Barwell, Anna, 118 + + Basel, 205, 206, 207 + + _Baucis and Philemon_, 132 + + _Bearers of German Idealism, The_, 54 + + Beethoven, 173, 181, 203, 206 + + _Before Dawn_, 134, 138 + + _Belgium at War_, 156 + + _Bellman Ballads_, 108 + + _Bell Songs_, 211 + + Benavente, Jacinto, 240, 247-252, 264 + + Bennett, Arnold, 101 + + _Benoni_, 214 + + Bergson, Henri, 55, 157 + + _Betrothal, The_, 154 + + _Beyond Human Power_, 59, 69 + + Bickersteth, G. L., 74, 75, 76, 84 + + _Binding of the Hair, The_, 261 + + Binion, S. A., 268 + + _Birth of God, The_, 195 + + Bismarck, 44 + + Björkman, Edwin, 69, 70, 132, 197, 217, 219 + + Björnson, Björnstjerne, 19, 20, 58-71, 87, 93, 193, 215, 253, 264 + + Blake, William, 262 + + _Blind, The_, 132, 152, 153 + + _Bloom of Life, The_, 225 + + _Blue Bird, The_, 153 + + Bodö, 214, 215 + + Bojer, Johan, 222 + + Bologna, 72, 75, 82 + + Bolpur, 162, 164, 174 + + _Bonds of Interest, The_, 249, 251 + + _Bonheur, Le_, 24, 25 + + Boni, Albert, 28 + + Boyd, Ernest, 206, 249 + + Brahm, Otto, 138 + + _Brand_, 199 + + Brandes, Edward, 197, 199, 217 + + Brandes, Georg, 61, 127, 133, 197, 201, 235 + + Brattleboro, 93, 94 + + Bréal, Michael, 178 + + Breslau, 137 + + _Broken Men, The_, 93 + + Brooks, Van Wyck, 186 + + Brousson, Jean-Jacques, 226, 236 + + _Brushwood_, 217 + + _Brushwood Boy, The_, 95 + + Buchan, John, 45, 46 + + Burckhardt, Jacob, 206 + + _Burgomaster at Stilemonde, The_, 156 + + Burns, Robert, 41 + + _Butterflies_, 207, 211, 212 + + _By the Grave (or Urn) of Shelley_, 78 + + Byrne, Donn, 254 + + + _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, 179 + + Calderon, 126, 242 + + _Calendau_, 37 + + _Caligula_, 178 + + _Can We Still Be Christians?_, 52, 55 + + Cannan, Gilbert, 180, 181, 183 + + _Captains Courageous_, 96 + + _Captured_, 194 + + Carducci, Giosuè, 72-84 + + Carman, Bliss, 152, 153 + + Carrington, H., 28 + + Carter, A. Helene, 207 + + _Cathleen ni Hoolihan_, 259 + + Celtic revival, 253, 254 + + _Celtic Twilight, The_, 261 + + Chaitanya Deva, 174 + + _Charles Men, The_, 193, 194 + + Chater, Arthur G., 121, 189, 196 + + Cheshire Cheese Club, 258 + + Chesterton, Gilbert K., 86 + + _Children of the Age_, 214, 220 + + _Children of the Soil_, 267 + + _Chitra_, 167 + + Chopin, 265 + + Christiania, 15, 60, 216 + + _Christianity and the New Idealism_, 54 + + _Christ Legends_, 116 + + Clamecy, 176 + + Clark, Barrett H., 138, 147, 179, 197, 239, 250 + + _Classicism and Teutonism_, 194 + + Claudel, Paul, 177 + + _Clerambault_, 186 + + _Clipped Wings_, 198, 199 + + _Cloud that Lifted, The_, 156 + + _Code of Statutes_, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 + + _Colas Breugnon_, 184 + + _Colberg_, 131 + + _Colleague Crampton_, 136, 138 + + Colum, Padraic, 254 + + Columbia University, 53 + + _Comedienne, The_, 270 + + _Comprehensive Lexicon of Ancient and Modern Provençal_, 40 + + Conrad, Michael Georg, 211 + + Copenhagen, 198, 199, 200, 217 + + Coppée, François, 26, 232 + + _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_, 45 + + _Cradle Songs_, 195 + + _Creative Philosophy_, 55 + + _Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century_, 61, 65, 127, 128, 133 + + _Creative Unity_, 169, 171 + + _Crescent Moon, The_, 168, 169 + + _Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, The_, 227-231 + + _Critica ed arte_, 76 + + _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_, 255 + + Curtin, Jeremiah, 267, 268 + + + Dalecarlia, 114 + + Danish Royal Theatre, 197 + + Dante, 76, 77, 126 + + _Danton_, 178 + + Darwin, Charles, 201 + + Daudet, Alphonse, 40 + + _Day’s Work, The_, 86, 95, 99 + + _Death of Tintagiles_, The, 152, 158 + + _Deirdre_, 259, 260 + + _Deluge_, The, 266 + + _Departmental Ditties_, 90, 91 + + Devereux, Roy, 265 + + _Doll’s House, A_, 249 + + _Don Juan_, 202 + + _Doubtful Virtue_, 251 + + Dowden, Edward, 26 + + Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 94 + + _Dreamer, The_, 275 + + _Dreamers, The_, 214, 221 + + Dresden, 201, 203, 204 + + Dreyfus case, 179, 233 + + Dublin, 256, 257, 258 + + Dunsany, Lord, 254 + + Dyboski, Roman, 274, 275 + + Dynamite, 4, 5 + + Dynicwicz, C. W., 267 + + Dziewicki, M. H., 270 + + + “Eagle’s Flight,” 200 + + Echegaray, José, 13, 31, 239-246, 264 + + _Eddas, The_, 201, 202 + + _Editor Lynge_, 218 + + _Editor, The_, 59, 67 + + _Emanuel, or Children of the Soil_, 267 + + _Emanuel Quint_, 146 + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 150 + + _Emigrants, The_, 223 + + _Emperor of Portugallia, The_, 110, 111, 119 + + _Endymion_, 193, 209 + + _English Flag, The_, 88 + + Erichsen, Nelly, 200 + + Ericsson, John, 3, 4 + + Ervine, St. John, 254 + + _Essays in Little_, 92 + + _Essays on Modern Dramatists_, 154 + + _Essays upon the Fine Arts_, 27 + + _Ethics and Modern Thought_, 55 + + Eucken, Rudolf, 48-57 + + Eugen Diederichs Verlag in Jena, 205, 211 + + Evans, A. W., 26 + + Expressionism, 250 + + Extramundana, 207 + + _Eyes of Asia_, 90, 100 + + + Farr, Florence, 259 + + Fay, William, 259 + + Fenger, Harald, 203 + + Félibres, The, 32 + + _Felice_, 131 + + “Felix Tandem,” 206 + + _Ferments_, 275 + + _Field of Ermine_, 248, 252 + + Fischer, Kuno, 51 + + _Fisher Maiden, The_, 61, 66, 68 + + _Five Nations, The_, 97 + + Flach, Pauline Bancroft, 112 + + _Florian Geyer_, 138, 141 + + _Folly or Saintliness_, 241 + + _For Daily Bread_, 268 + + _Forest Murmurs_, 194 + + Founder’s Day, 15 + + France, Anatole (_see_ Anatole France) + + Francke, Kuno, 208 + + Freeman, E. A., 45, 46 + + French Academy, 22, 24, 39, 151, 211 + + _French Mons_, 194 + + _From a Swedish Homestead_, 112, 113 + + _From Sea to Sea_, 195 + + _From the Notebook of a Posen_, 266 + + Frost, Mary A., 128 + + _Fundamental Ideas of the Present Day_, 51 + + _Further Adventures of Nils_, 116, 117 + + + Galdós, Pérez-, 239, 244 + + _Gallery, A_, 101 + + Galsworthy, John, 145, 146 + + _Gandhi, Mahatma_, 185 + + _Gardener, The_, 159, 163, 172, 174 + + _Gauntlet, A_, 69 + + _German Classics_, 208 + + _Germinal_, 272 + + Ghent, 149 + + _Ghosts_, 199, 243 + + Gibson, Lucy Judge, 54 + + Gibson, W. R. Boyce, 54 + + Gilkyson, T. W., 245 + + _Girl from the Marshcroft, The_, 122 + + _Gitanjali_, 164, 165, 172, 174 + + Gjellerup, Karl, 13, 201-204 + + _Gods and Fighting Men_, 255 + + _Gods Are Athirst, The_, 233 + + Goethe, 76, 132, 181, 210 + + Gonski, Casimir, 267 + + _Gora_, 173 + + Gosse, Sir Edmund, 61, 62 + + _Governor’s Wife, The_, 249 + + Graham, James, 244 + + _Great Galeoto, The_, 242, 243 + + Gregory, Lady, 253, 254, 255, 256, 259, 260 + + Groth, Catherine D., 185 + + _Growth of the Soil_, 214, 220, 221 + + Gsell, Paul, 225, 235 + + Guedalla, Philip, 101 + + Guiney, Dorothy Frances, 28 + + _Gustav_, 207 + + + _Hadrian_, 131 + + _Halta Hulda_, 67 + + Hamsun, Knut, 213-223, 264 + + _Hania_, 267 + + _Hannele_, 139, 141 + + Hannibal, 46, 47 + + _Hans Alienus_, 193 + + _Hans Lange_, 131 + + _Happy Boy, A_, 20, 61, 63, 66 + + Hardy, Thomas, 85, 272 + + Harnack, Adolf, 55 + + Harned, Mary, 145 + + Harvard University, 53, 98 + + Hauptmann, Gerhart, 133-147, 185, 240, 264 + + Hearn, Lafcadio, 231 + + Heidelberg, 206 + + Heidenstam, Verner von, 87, 189-196, 254 + + Heine, 76 + + Heller, Otto, 135 + + Henley, W. E., 258 + + _Henry of Aue_, 143, 144 + + _Heretic of Soana, The_, 146 + + _Heretics_, 86, 87 + + Hermann, E., 55 + + Heyse, Paul, 124-133, 155, 240, 264 + + Hinkson, Katherine Tynan, 258 + + _Histoire comique_, 237 + + _Histoire contemporaine_, 237 + + _Historical Significance of the German People, The_, 54 + + _History of Rome_, 44, 45, 46 + + Hodge, Thekla E., 209, 211 + + Holland, Maud, 82 + + _Hombrecito, El_, 249 + + _Hour-Glass, The_, 255, 259 + + Hovey, Richard, 152, 153 + + Howard, Velma Swanston, 105, 106, 111, 114, 122 + + Huddlestone, Sisley, 238 + + Hughes, Rupert, 271, 274 + + Hugo, Victor, 24, 30, 244 + + _Human Comedy, The_, 225 + + Huneker, James, 237 + + _Hunger_, 214, 217, 219 + + Hyde, Douglas, 253, 254, 255, 259 + + _Hymn to Satan_, 75 + + + Ibsen, Henrik, 58, 60, 65, 136, 199, 243, 249 + + Idealism in literature, 10, 19, 21, 22, 49, 86, 105, 133, 205, 246, + 251, 253 + + _Ideals in Ireland_, 253, 254 + + _Ideas of Good and Evil_, 258, 261 + + _If_, 87 + + _Imago_, 208 + + _Im Paradiese_, 129, 130 + + _Independence_, 102 + + _In Desert and Wilderness_, 269 + + _In God’s Way_, 66 + + _In Tartar Captivity_, 266 + + _In the Grip of Life_, 220 + + _In the Seven Woods_, 262 + + _Intruder, The_, 152, 158 + + _In Vain_, 269 + + _Invisible Links_, 111, 112 + + _Irish Melodies_, 203 + + _Island of the Great Mother_, 146 + + _Isles d’or, Les_, 38 + + _Italian Influences_, 77 + + + Jameson, Storm, 239, 249, 251 + + _Janko, the Musician_, 266 + + Jasmin, Jacques, 32 + + _Jean-Christophe_, 175, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 184 + + Jena University, 51 + + _Jerusalem_, 113, 114 + + _John of Abyssinia_, 206 + + _John Sherman_, 256 + + Johnson, Lionel, 258 + + _Joyzelle_, 153, 154, 155 + + _Jungle Books, The_, 94, 96 + + _Justice, La_, 24 + + _Just So Stories_, 96 + + + _Karen Borneman_, 197 + + Kasprowicz, Jan, 272 + + Keats, John, 262 + + Keller, Gottfried, 210 + + _Kim_, 86, 96 + + _Kinder der Welt_, 128, 132 + + _Kingdom of the Dead, The_, 199 + + _King of the Dark Chamber_, 172 + + _King, The_, 67 + + Kipling, Alice MacDonald, 89 + + Kipling, Caroline Balestier, 94, 95 + + Kipling, John Lockwood, 89, 97 + + Kipling, Rudyard, 18, 85-103 + + _Knights of the Cross_, 268 + + Knudson, Karoline M., 189, 195 + + _Knut Hamsun; A Study_, 216 + + _Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life_, 214, 216, + 218, 222 + + Kvikne, 59 + + + Lady Gregory (_see_ Gregory) + + Lagerlöf, Selma, 104-123, 254 + + Lahore, 89, 90, 91 + + Lamartine, 33, 38 + + _Lame Hulda_, 67 + + _Land and Sea Tales for Scouts_, etc., 87, 100 + + _Land of Heart’s Desire, The_, 255, 259, 260 + + Lang, Andrew, 92 + + Lansing, Ruth, 239, 241 + + Larsen, Hanna Arstrup, 216, 218 + + _Last Centaur, The_, 131, 132 + + _Last of the Vikings, The_, 223 + + _Laughing Truth_, 207 + + _Lay Down Your Arms_, 7 + + _Lay of the Leader_, 275 + + _Legendary Romance, A_, 202 + + Letts, Winifred, 254 + + _Let Us Follow Him_, 267 + + _Library of the World’s Best Literature_, 35, 241 + + _Life of Jeanne d’Arc, The_, 225, 233, 236 + + _Life of the Bee, The_, 156 + + _Life of the Spirit, The_, 52 + + _Life’s Basis and Life’s Ideals_, 52 + + _Life’s Handicap_, 86 + + _Life’s Play_, 219 + + _Liliecrona’s Home_, 118, 119 + + _Liluli_, 185 + + _Literary Ideals in Ireland_, 263 + + _Little Pierre_, 225 + + “Litwos,” 266 + + Lofoden Islands, 214, 215 + + _Lonely Lives_, 134, 136 + + _Loups, Les_, 179 + + Lowell Institute, 53 + + Lucas, Mrs. Edgar, 200 + + Lucerne, 207 + + _Lucky Peter_, 199 + + Lucretius, 24 + + Lynch, Hannah, 239, 241 + + + _Mädchenfeinde_, 207, 208 + + _Madman or Saint_, 241 + + Madrid, 240, 243, 248 + + Maeterlinck, Maurice, 148-158, 250 + + _Magic of an Hour, The_, 248, 251 + + _Magnhild_, 66 + + _Mahatma Gandhi_, 170 + + _Malquerida, La_, 248 + + _Many Inventions_, 94 + + _Mårbacka_, 105 + + _Mariana_, 242, 244 + + _Mary_, 70 + + _Mary of Magdala_, 131 + + _Mary Magdalene_, 154, 155 + + Masereel, Frans, 186 + + Massis, Henri, 235 + + Mattos, Alex. Teixeira de, 157 + + Maubel, Henri, 149 + + Maud, Constance Elizabeth, 39 + + May, James Lewis, 25, 225, 237 + + McCabe, Joseph, 49, 55 + + _Meaning and Value of Life, The_, 54 + + Meltzer, Charles Henry, 139 + + _Mémoires d’une idéaliste_, 177 + + _Memoirs of Mistral_, 39 + + Meredith, George, 35, 36, 85 + + _Merlin_, 26 + + _Mes origines_, 39 + + Meyer, Conrad, 210 + + Meysenburg, Malwida von, 177 + + Miall, Bernard, 157, 177 + + _Michael Kramer_, 135 + + Michelson, A. A., 18 + + Miller, Katherine, 184, 186 + + Milnes, Turquet, 157 + + “Mimosas,” 200 + + _Minna_, 202, 203 + + Mirabeau, Octave, 150 + + _Miracles of Antichrist_, 111 + + _Mireio_, 20, 31, 33-36, 93 + + Mistral, Frédéric, 13, 20, 31-41, 72, 87, 93, 240, 253 + + _Modern Book of French Verse, The_, 28, 29 + + _Modern Drama in Europe_, 239, 249 + + _Modern Polish Literature_, 274 + + Mommsen, Theodor, 42-48, 79 + + _Monna Vanna_, 155 + + Monod, Gabriel, 176 + + _Montespan, The_, 185 + + Moore, George, 253, 259 + + Moore, Thomas, 203, 204, 258 + + Morgan, Bayard Quincy, 146 + + Moses, Montrose J., 150, 151 + + Muir, Edwin, 146 + + Muir, Willa, 146 + + Munich, 126, 130 + + _Munken Vendt_, 219 + + Münsterberg, Marguerite, 210 + + _Musicians of Former Days_, 178 + + _Musicians of Today_, 178 + + _My Friend’s Book_, 225, 230, 232 + + _My Reminiscences_, 160, 169 + + _Mysteries_, 214, 218 + + + Napoleon III, 5 + + _Naturalism or Idealism?_, 56, 57 + + _Naulahka, The_, 93 + + Nawench, A. M., 271 + + _Necklace of Stars, The_, 249 + + _Nero_, 268 + + _Nerto_, 31, 38 + + _Newly-Married Couple, The_, 67, 68 + + _New Soil_, 217 + + Nielson, C. L., 203 + + _Nietzsche_, 205, 207 + + _Nimäi_, 174 + + _Niobe_, 178 + + Nirdlinger, Charles, 239 + + Nobel, Alfred, 1-20 + + Nobel, Emanuel, 2, 3, 9 + + Nobel Foundation, 10, 11, 12, 16 + + Nobel, Ludwig, 2 + + Nobel, Robert, 11 + + Nobel, will of, 10-16, 17, 18, 21, 42, 57, 104 + + _Nobody is a Prophet_, etc., 266 + + _Northern Studies_, 60 + + Norwegian Storthing, 11, 58 + + _Nouvelle Revue_, 7 + + Novalis, 150 + + _Novellen_, 124, 125 + + _Nuove poesie_, 76 + + + _Odi barbare_, 78, 79 + + _Of American Culture_, 216 + + _Old Bell-Ringer, The_, 266 + + _Olivades, Les_, 39 + + _Olympian Spring_, 205, 208, 209, 210 + + _On Baile’s Strand_, 255 + + _On Emerson and Other Essays_, 150, 151 + + _On Life and Letters_, 26, 227, 232 + + _On the Bright Shore_, 269 + + _On the Field of Glory_, 268, 269 + + _On the Scent_, 149 + + _Opium Smokers_, 275 + + Orkan, Ladislaw, 272 + + Orsino, 178 + + O’Shaughnessy, Arthur, 28, 29 + + _Our Eternity_, 156 + + _Outcast, The_, 120, 121 + + _Over the Lofty Mountains_, 60 + + Oxford University, 270 + + + _Pair of Shoes, A_, 251 + + Palayo, Mendenez, 244 + + Palmer, Arthur Hubbell, 63 + + Pan, 214, 218 + + _Pan Michael_, 266 + + _Parisian Portraits_, 27 + + Parker, Gilbert, 152 + + Parker, W. B., 86 + + _Parsival_, 135, 136, 144, 145 + + _Passion Flower, The_, 248 + + Passow, Irene, 51 + + _Pastor Mons_, 202 + + _Peasants in Exile_, 268 + + _Peasants, The_, 269-272 + + _Peer Gynt_, 198 + + _Pelléas and Mélisande_, 150 + + _Penguin Island_, 225, 233 + + _People’s Theatre, The_, 178, 179 + + _Pepita’s Wedding_, 193 + + _Peter Pan_, 142, 260 + + Phelps, M. Stuart, 51 + + Phelps, William Lyon, 154 + + Picard, Edmund, 149 + + _Piedmont_, 80 + + _Pierre Nozière_, 225, 226 + + _Pilgrimage, A._, 223 + + _Pilgrimages and Wander Years_, 190, 191 + + _Pilgrim Kamanita, The_, 202 + + _Pilgrim’s Way, A._, 87 + + _Plain Tales from the Hills_, 90 + + _Plays in Prose and Verse_, 255, 260 + + Plessis, Frédéric, 26 + + _Poème du Rhône, Le_, 40 + + _Poems and Songs_, 63 + + _Poland Reborn_, 265 + + Polish Literature, 264, 265 + + Pontoppidan, Henrik, 13, 197-200 + + Porter, Noah, 51 + + _Post Office, The_, 172 + + _Pot of Broth, The_, 259 + + _Power of the Dead_, 156 + + _Prayers for Mother India_, 169 + + Preston, Harriet Waters, 35, 37 + + _Primo Vere_, 82, 83 + + _Princess Maleine_, 150 + + _Prometheus and Epimetheus_, 206 + + _Prometheus Unbound_, 209 + + _Promised Land, The_, 199, 270, 271 + + _Puck of Pook’s Hill_, 96 + + _Punch and Judy and Other Essays_, 30 + + + Quai Malaquais, 226 + + _Que sais-je?_, 28 + + Quiller-Couch, Arthur, 65 + + Quimby, Mary Ayres, 146 + + _Quo Vadis_, 267, 268 + + + _Recessional, The_, 95, 97 + + _Red Lily, The_, 225, 233 + + Redman, Ben Ray, 186 + + Reid, Forrest, 257, 259, 260 + + _Religion and Life_, 55 + + _Reminiscences_, 258 + + _Responsibilities_, 262 + + _Revolt of the Angels, The_, 225, 233, 237 + + _Revue Universelle, La_, 235 + + _Rewards and Fairies_, 96 + + Reymont, Ladislaw, 240, 264, 269-276 + + Rhys, Ernest, 160 + + Richards, T. W., 18 + + _Riders to the Sea_, 260 + + Rolland, Romain, 170, 175-188, 212, 254, 264 + + Romsdale, 59 + + Roosevelt, Theodore, 18, 41, 53 + + Root, Elihu, 18 + + Roumanille, Joseph, 32 + + Roy, Basanta Koomar, 165 + + Ruysbroeck, 150 + + + _Sacrifice and Other Plays_, 168 + + _Sadhana_, 150, 166, 172 + + _Saint Briggitta’s Pilgrimage_, 194 + + _Sainte-Beuve_, 235 + + _Saint George and the Dragon_, 194 + + _Saint Louis_, 178 + + _Salamander_, 127 + + Sanborn, Alvan V., 179 + + _Sandhya Sangit_, 163 + + _Sapphics and Alcaics_, 73 + + _Saturday Night_, 249 + + Scheffel, Joseph Victor, 128, 129 + + Schiller, 76, 210 + + _School of Princesses, The_, 252 + + Scudder, Vida D., 274 + + _Segelfoss Town_, 220, 221 + + Seltzer, Adele, 146 + + Seltzer, Thomas, 146 + + Selver, Paul, 270 + + Serrano, Mary, 241 + + _Seven Princesses, The_, 152 + + _Seven Seas, The_, 94 + + _Shadowy Waters, The_, 261 + + Shakespeare, 101, 126, 177 + + Shaw, George Bernard, 263 + + _Shay’s 25 Short Plays_, 245 + + Shelley, 78, 262 + + Sienkiewicz, Henryk, 240, 264-269 + + _Sigurd Slembe_, 59, 64 + + _Sister Beatrice_, 157 + + Sligo, 256 + + Smith College, 53 + + _Socialism; an Analysis_, 55 + + Sohlmann, Ragnar, 9 + + Soissons, S. C. de, 268 + + _Soldiers Three_, 90, 93 + + _Solitudes, Les_, 24 + + _Some Eighteenth Century Byways_, etc., 45, 46 + + _Song of the English, A_, 103 + + _Song of the French Roads, A_, 88 + + _Songs of Sunrise_, 163 + + _Son of Don Juan, The_, 242, 243 + + _Soothsayer, The_, 195 + + Spanish Academy, 239, 248 + + _Spiritual Life of Modern America, The_, 216 + + Spitteler, Carl, 205-212 + + _Spreading the News_, 260 + + _Spring_, 270, 272 + + _Stalky & Co._, 90 + + _Stances et poèmes_, 23 + + Starkie, Walter, 250 + + Stephens, James, 254 + + Stimson, Eleanor, 186 + + _Stolen Child, The_, 255 + + Stork, Charles Wharton, 189, 191, 192, 193 + + _Story of Gösta Berling, The_, 105, 109, 110, 112, 119 + + _Stray Birds_, 168 + + Strettell, Alma, 39 + + Strindberg, August, 190 + + _Struggling Life_, 217 + + _Studies from Ten Literatures_, 206, 249 + + _Studies in Literature_, 26 + + _Studies in Modern German Literature_, 135 + + _Study of the Modern Drama, A_, 138, 197, 239, 249 + + Sully-Prudhomme, René, 21-30, 240 + + _Summer_, 186, 187, 270, 272 + + _Sunken Bell, The_, 135, 140, 141, 142, 260 + + _Sunset_, 219 + + _Supplication, A_, 28, 29 + + Suttner, Bertha von, 6, 7, 8 + + _Sweden’s Laureate_, 189 + + Swedish Academy, 11, 12, 16, 17, 43, 194, 197, 234, 236 + + Symbolism, 152 + + Symons, Arthur, 258 + + Synge, John, 254, 255, 260 + + _Synnöve Solbakken_, 61, 62, 63 + + + Tagore, Rabindranath, 18, 159-174, 254 + + _Tales from a Mother of Pearl Casket_, 233 + + _Test, The_, 23 + + _Thaïs_, 225, 232, 233 + + _That Third Woman_, 269 + + _Theseus and Heracles_, 206 + + _They_, 95 + + Thibault, François Noël, 226 + + Thibault, Jacques Anatole, 224 + + Thompson, Vance, 5 + + _Thora van Deken_, 198 + + _Those Europeans_, 238 + + _Thoughts in Loneliness_, 190 + + _Three Poets_, 27 + + _Thy Brother’s House_, 247 + + _Tolstoy_, 177, 246 + + _Traffics and Discoveries_, 97 + + _Tragedies de la foi, Les_, 180 + + _Treasure of the Humble, The_, 156 + + _Treasure, The_, 121, 122 + + _Tree of the Folkungs, The_, 196 + + Trumbauer, Walter H. P., 145 + + _Truth of Religion, The_, 52 + + _Truth, The_, 248 + + _Twenty-five Years_, 258 + + _Two Little Misogynists_, 207, 208 + + + Underhill, John Garrett, 239, 245, 249, 250 + + _Under the Autumn Star_, 215 + + _Under the Deodars_, 90 + + _Unknown Guest, The_, 156 + + Upanishads, 166, 172 + + Upsala, 64, 117 + + Urbana, 165 + + + Valdes, 239 + + Valera, 239, 244 + + Varmland, 106, 108, 118 + + Vega, Lope de, 242 + + _Versunkene Glocke, Die_, 141, 142 + + _Victoria_, 219 + + Vigny, Alfred de, 229 + + _Voices of Tomorrow_, 70, 132 + + _Vraie religion selon Pascal, La_, 28 + + _Vrais tendresses, Les_, 24 + + Wackernagel, Wilhelm, 206 + + Wagner, 178, 181, 202, 203 + + Wallace, Elizabeth, 243 + + _Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, A_, 215 + + Warsaw, 265, 266 + + _Weavers, The_, 136, 138, 139 + + _Wee Willie Winkie_, 91 + + _What Do I Know?_, 28 + + _What Will People Say?_, 274 + + _When the New Wine Blooms_, 70 + + _White Stone, The_, 233 + + Whittier, J. G., 41 + + _Wicker-Work Woman, The_, 233 + + Widgery, Alban G., 56 + + Widman, Joseph Victor, 210, 211 + + Wiehr, Josef, 214, 216, 218, 222 + + _Wife of the Avenger_, 240 + + Williams, Oakley, 144 + + Wilson, Woodrow, 18, 185 + + _Wind among the Reeds, The_, 258, 261 + + _Winter_, 270, 272 + + _Winter Ballad, A_, 146 + + _With Fire and Sword_, 266, 267 + + _Without Dogma_, 267 + + Wolf, Hugo, 181 + + _Woman’s Victory_, 217 + + _Wonderful Adventures of Nils, The_, 105, 113, 117, 195 + + Worster, W. W., 221 + + _Wrack of the Storm, The_, 156 + + + Yagna, 272, 273 + + _Years Between, The_, 99, 100 + + _Year 1794, The_, 275 + + Yeats, William Butler, 18, 160, 253-263 + + Young Poland, 269 + + + _Zacchæus_, 217 + + Zeromski, Stephen, 275 + + Zola, 272 + + Zürich, 43, 206 + + Zweig, Stefan, 175, 176, 181 + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber’s note + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. +Hyphenization was standardized where appropriate. Italization, and +spelling of proper nouns were also standardized. + +In this version, the illustrations are placed differently on the page +than in the original. + +Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following +changes: + + Page 65: “is a concilatory mind” “is a conciliatory mind” + Page 178: “Original of the Modern” “Origins of the Modern” + Page 180: “falsit es and hypocrisy” “falsities and hypocrisy” + Page 180: “days, under title” “days, under the title” + Page 201: “accept my parish” “accept any parish” + Page 294: “zwie Roman, ubersetzung” “zwei Roman, ubersetzung” + Page 295: “_goldens Zweig_, Dichtung “_goldene Zweig_, Dichtung + und Novellenkrauz” und Novellenkranz” + Page 295: “_Frühesten Erlebmisse_” “_Frühesten Erlebnisse_” + Page 298: “Years; Reminiscencs” “Years; Reminiscences” + Page 311: “Vrai religion selon” “Vraie religion selon” + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77238 *** diff --git a/77238-h/77238-h.htm b/77238-h/77238-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3eeebd8 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/77238-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12509 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The nobel prize winners in literature | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; 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right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +.author { + text-align: right; + margin-right: 20% + } + +.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;} +.x-ebookmaker-drop {color: inherit;} + +.ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } +.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } +.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } +.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } + +.fs { font-size: small; } + +p.hanging-indent1 { + padding-left: 2.25em; + text-indent: -2.25em; +} + +.tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; +padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em; +padding-right: .5em;} + + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2.0em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1.0em;} +.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 3.0em;} +.poetry .indent14 {text-indent: 4.0em;} +.poetry .indent20 {text-indent: 7.0em;} + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp50 {width: 50%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp50 {width: 100%;} +.illowp69 {width: 69%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp69 {width: 100%;} +.illowp49 {width: 49%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp49 {width: 100%;} +.illowp54 {width: 54%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp54 {width: 100%;} +.illowp57 {width: 57%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp57 {width: 100%;} +.illowp52 {width: 52%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp52 {width: 100%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77238 ***</div> + + +<h1> +THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS<br> +IN LITERATURE +</h1> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a> </span></p> +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_frontis" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_frontis.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation</i> + </blockquote> + <p>ALFRED NOBEL</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph2"> + THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS<br> + IN LITERATURE</p> +<p class="ph3"> + <i>By</i> ANNIE RUSSELL MARBLE</p> + <br> + <br> + <figure class="figcenter illowp69" id="i_title" style="width: 6.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_title.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + <br> + <p class="ph2"> + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p> +<p class="ph3"> + NEW YORK :: MCMXXVII :: LONDON +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph4"> + <span class="smcap">Copyright, 1925, by</span></p> +<p class="ph3"> + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</p> + <br> + <br> +<p class="ph4"> + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph4"> + TO</p> +<p class="ph3"> + PAUL AND ANNA +</p> + +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></p> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE"> + PREFACE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>These studies of Nobel Prize Winners in Literature +have been the result of research for several years and +lectures upon the subject in University Extension +courses, before college clubs and other groups. The +vast scope of the subject suggests temerity in one who +attempts to treat it in such limited space. The writer +realizes the inadequacy of the book and possible conflicting +statements because of diverse authorities that +have been consulted. After careful “siftings,” it is +offered as an incentive to further study, as a roadmap +to many paths of literary research. Biographical data +and brief criticism of the authors’ works are followed +by a <a href="#Page_279">bibliography</a> which is suggestive rather than exhaustive.</p> + +<p>The writer of these chapters has been, in large +measure, the recorder of research by many individuals +and educational institutions, with personal deductions +from wide reading. Among many books that have +been stimulating are <i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth +Century</i> by Georg Brandes, <i>Studies from Ten Literatures</i> +by Ernest Boyd, books upon the drama and translations +by John Garrett Underhill, Ludwig Lewisohn +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span>and Barrett H. Clark, and studies of Knut Hamsun by +Josef Wiehr and Hanna Arstrup Larsen. Other +specific books of interpretation are emphasized in text +and footnotes, as well as in <a href="#Page_279">bibliography</a>.</p> + +<p>Gratitude that defies fitting words would be here expressed +to Miss Anna C. Reque of the Bureau of Information +of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, +to the Svenska Akademien Nobelinstitut of Stockholm, +to Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard, Miss Svea Boson +and Thekla E. Hodge for translations, to Mr. R. F. +Sharp of the British Museum, to Eugen Diederichs +Verlag in Jerla, to The Danish National Library, +Copenhagen, to Prof. Josef Wiehr, Prof. Kuno +Francke, Francis Rooney, Esq., to Mr. Theodore +Sutro, Mr. Rupert Hughes, Miss Harriet C. Marble, +and to librarians of the Widener Library, Cambridge, +Massachusetts, Miss Grace W. Wood, Mrs. Helen +Abbott Beals, and to librarians of the Widener Library, +Cambridge, Library of Congress, New York +Public Library, Free Public Library of Worcester +and many other sources of encouragement and +coöperation.</p> + +<p>Appreciation of permission to quote extracts from +printed works and to use illustrations is acknowledged +to Sir Edmund Gosse, Mr. Rudyard Kipling and his +agents, A. P. Watt & Son, to editors of <i>The Atlantic +Monthly</i>, <i>The Bookman</i>, <i>The Edinburgh Review</i>, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span>the publishing houses of American-Scandinavian Foundation, +D. Appleton & Co., Boni & Liveright, The +Century Co., Thomas Y. Crowell Company, Dodd, +Mead & Company, Inc., Doubleday, Page & Company, +Ginn and Company, Henry Holt and Company, +Houghton Mifflin Company, B. W. Huebsch, Inc., +Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Little, Brown & Company, J. +B. Lippincott Company, Longmans, Green & Co., The +Macmillan Company, Oxford University Press, American +Branch, The Pilgrim Press, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, +Charles Scribner’s Sons, Thomas Seltzer, Inc., +Leonard Scott Publication Company, Herman Struck, +W. P. Trumbauer, The University of Pennsylvania +and Yale University Press.</p> + +<p class="author"> + <span class="smcap">Annie Russell Marble</span></p> +<p> + Worcester, Massachusetts,<br> + September, 1925 +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x"></a>[Pg x]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi"></a>[Pg xi]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"><span class="fs">PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="fs">CHAPTER</span></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Alfred Nobel: The Conditions of His Will and Literary Results</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Poets of France and Provence</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Sully-Prudhomme (1901)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Frédéric Mistral (1904)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Two German Scholars</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Theodor Mommsen (1902)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Rudolf Eucken (1908)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Björnson: Norwegian Novelist and Playwright</span> (1903)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Giosuè Carducci—Italian Poet</span> (1906)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Writings of Rudyard Kipling Before and After the Award</span> (1907)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Selma Lagerlöf—Swedish Realist and Idealist</span> (1909)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Paul Heyse</span> (1910)—<span class="smcap">Gerhart Hauptmann</span> (1912)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Maeterlinck—Belgian Symbolist and Poet-Playwright</span> (1911)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Rabindranath Tagore—Bengalese Mystic-Poet</span> (1913)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Romain Rolland and <i>Jean-Christophe</i></span> (1915)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Group of Winners—Novelists and Poets</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Verner Von Heidenstam (1916)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Henrik Pontoppidan (1917)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Karl Gjellerup (1917)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Carl Spitteler (1919)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XIII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Knut Hamsun and His Novels of Norwegian Life</span> (1920)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XIV.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Anatole France—Versatile Stylist in Fiction and Essays</span> (1921)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XV.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Two Spanish Dramatists</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">José Echegaray (1904)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Jacinto Benavente (1922)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XVI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">W. B. Yeats and His Part in the Celtic Revival</span> (1923)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr">XVII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Honors to Polish Fiction</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl">Ladislaw Stanislaw Reymont (1924)</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Chronological List of Nobel Prize Winners in Literature</span></td> + +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdr"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> + +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td> + +</tr> +</table> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"> + ILLUSTRATIONS + </h2> +</div> + + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr"><span class="fs">FACING</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr"><span class="fs">PAGE</span></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Alfred Nobel</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><i><a href="#Page_i">Frontispiece</a></i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Frédéric Mistral</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">32</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Björnstjerne Björnson</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Rudyard Kipling</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Selma Lagerlöf</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Gerhart Hauptmann</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Maurice Maeterlinck</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> + +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Rabindranath Tagore</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Romain Rolland</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Knut Hamsun</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Anatole France</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Jacinto Benavente</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">William Butler Yeats</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> + +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Henryk Sienkiewicz</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiv"></a>[Pg xiv]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[Pg 1]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_NOBEL_PRIZE"> + THE NOBEL PRIZE + WINNERS IN LITERATURE + </h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="r5"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + ALFRED NOBEL: THE CONDITIONS OF HIS + WILL AND LITERARY RESULTS + </h2> + + + +<p><i>Nobilius</i> was the ancestral name, by tradition, of +that family whose representative, Alfred Nobel, has +left a name synonymous with inventiveness and large +benefactions to humanity. The grandfather, Imanuel, +an army surgeon, is accredited with changing the family +name to <i>Nobel</i>. His son, Emanuel, father of Alfred, +taught science in Stockholm, as a young man. +With inventive ability he experimented with explosives, +submarine mines, and other destructive forces and, by +paradox, became designer of surgical appliances and +India-rubber cushions to relieve suffering. He was +interested in ship construction and spent some time in +Egypt. To his sons he transmitted his spirit of +scientific research, with all the dangers as well as the +inspiration of such ambition. Two explosions, during +experiments with nitroglycerine and other chemicals, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>caused severe loss. The first, occurring about 1837 in +Stockholm, shattered the nerves of the people as well +as their windows, so that Emanuel went to Russia, on +the advice of friends prominent in affairs of industry +and government. Here he was employed by the Russians +to continue his experiments with submarine mines; +with his family, he remained here until after the +Crimean War, contributing to naval warfare by his +inventions. An older son, Ludwig, remained in Russia +when his family returned to Sweden. This son gained +repute as an engineer and discovered the petroleum +springs at Baku.⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> A second explosion in one of the +factories of Sweden, in 1864, caused the death of a +younger son of Emanuel Nobel and shocked the father +so severely that he was an invalid physically for the +rest of his life.</p> + +<p>Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born at Stockholm in +1833. He was less robust than his brothers; he was +sensitive and nervous, suffering from headaches all his +life. His mother, Karoline Henriette Ahlssell, was +his devoted comrade from the early days when he +would lie on the couch while she read to him or told +him sagas and hero-stories. She was wise and happy +by nature, confident that Alfred would become “a great +man,” in spite of poor physique and moods of depression. +He never married, although he loved a young +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>girl who died in her youth, but he was devoted to his +mother to the end of her life. Letters and frequent +visits to her in Sweden, in his later life, kept alive his +affectionate nature and his idealism.</p> + +<p>Like his father he showed studious interest in +chemistry, physics, and mechanical engineering. Shipbuilding +attracted his attention for a time and, when +he was about seventeen, he was sent to the United +States to increase his knowledge of mechanics, as applied +to ships, by association with John Ericsson. At +the home of the latter on Franklin Street, New York, +where a tablet has been placed to commemorate the +services of this inventor in the Civil War, young Nobel +lived for a time. His father sent him to John +Ericsson in order to investigate an invention of his, +an engine which was supposed to work by heat from +the sun. He stayed several months, probably not +more than a year. Ericsson was passing through +a period of fluctuating fortunes. At the end of 1849 +his balance was only $132.32—his total receipts for the +year had been but $2,000. Two years later he recorded +a balance of $8,690.10. In the interval he +had sold several patents and had received congratulations +from the King of Sweden upon the great future +for his “test caloric engine.” This was the goal of +his experiments during these years; its success was to +be tested in the trial trip of <i>The Ericsson</i>, February 11, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>1853. A squall came up as the boat was launched and +making headway, and it sank, carrying with it hopes +of the inventor after years of experiment, and half +a million dollars of invested capital. Ericsson was +crushed for a few weeks. How pluckily he recovered +his courage, made his plans for <i>The Monitor</i>, +offered that to the United States government and +won success for the cause of the North, is familiar +history.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>Upon Alfred Nobel, with his quick, impressionable +temperament, this direct contact with Ericsson must +have left strong influences. Perhaps he decided then +that, should fortune favor him, he would leave a fund +to aid scientists in their experiments and to protect +them against financial duress during periods of discouragement. +When he returned to Sweden and +Russia, he coöperated with his father and brothers in +manufacturing nitroglycerine and other explosives; he +was constantly seeking for a compound which would be +more powerful and less dangerous. In 1857, at St. +Petersburg, he had taken out a patent for a gasometer. +It has been said that the discovery of what was later +known as dynamite came by accident to Alfred Nobel, +during an experiment about 1865-66. Some nitroglycerine +had escaped into the siliceous sand of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>packing and this brought about a partial solution of +his problem. Dynamite, which was composed of 75 +per cent nitroglycerine and 25 per cent kieselguhr, or +infusorial earth, was produced. He applied for patents +in several countries, and sought for funds to start factories +which he believed would make a fortune by +manufacture of this new explosive. It was sometimes +called “Nobel’s blasting-oil.” He told French bankers +that he had invented “an oil that would blow up the +world”; a facetious commentator declared, “French +bankers thought it for their interest to leave the globe +undisturbed” and refused him credit.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>Napoleon III became interested and arranged for +funds for Nobel’s factories in France. With some +samples of dynamite in his hand bag, Alfred Nobel +came to the United States on the same commercial +mission. New York hotels received him with suspicion +because of rumors about the “deadly explosive”; +he went to California where, through the aid of Dr. +Bandman, a friend of Nobel’s brother, a factory was +started near Los Angeles. In a few years manufactories +were in operation in Italy, Spain, France and +Scotland, as well as England and Sweden. When Alfred +Nobel was forty years old he was making his +fortune out of this “giant powder.” For several +years he lived in Paris where he had laboratories for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>further experiments with gelatin, balastite, and forms +of smokeless powder. In his later home, in San +Remo, he carried on developments and took out more +patents in petroleum and artificial gutta-percha. He +received the tribute of scientists and educators but +the ignorant people regarded him with a mixture of +awe and fear—“he had put the long hammer of Thor +to work again among the giants.”</p> + +<p>In spite of his inspiring life-work and many successes, +in spite of his wealth and honors, Alfred Nobel +was a lonely man. His health was unstable; he often +worked with bandaged head and in intense pain, accentuated +by the gaseous fumes of his laboratory. +He was self-distrustful and fearful that people were +attracted to him <i>only</i> by his wealth. One of the few +individuals who gained and kept his confidence was +Baroness Bertha von Suttner. In her <i>Memoirs</i> the +personality of Alfred Nobel is revealed in comments +and letters. She came to him in response to an +advertisement in a Paris newspaper, asking for a secretary +for “a very wealthy, cultured gentleman.” She +remained only a few days in her joint capacity of +secretary and housekeeper, for a happy solution of +her interrupted romance with the Baron von Suttner +eventuated in her speedy marriage. She exchanged +letters and visits with Alfred Nobel for many years +and was devoted to him in life and in memory. She +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>describes him as somewhat below average height, +without physical attractiveness but in no sense “repulsive,” +as he imagined himself to be. He was a +fine linguist, somewhat of a philosopher, a good conversationalist +and entertaining as a story-teller. He +allowed her to read a long philosophical poem which +he had written in English and she found it “simply +splendid.” He was critical of the shallow, false-hearted +people, especially those who importuned him +with low motives; but he had faith in a better development +of humanity as education progressed. One +of his few intellectual companions in Paris was +Madame Juliette Adams, author and editor of the +<i>Nouvelle Revue</i>; at her salon in Rue Juliet, Nobel +would meet, occasionally, men of science and letters.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Memoirs</i> of Baroness von Suttner may be +located the first intimations of Nobel’s motives which +led to the Nobel prizes, especially the specific form +which was known as “the Peace Prize.” It will be +recalled that the Baroness von Suttner was one of +the early winners of this prize by her widely-read romance, +<i>Die Waffen nieder</i> (<i>Lay Down Your Arms!</i>). +In 1890, after the publication of this story, advocating +world peace, Nobel wrote letters of high commendation. +On another occasion he said to her, “I +wish I could produce a substance or a machine of such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>frightful efficacy for wholesale devastation that wars +should thereby become altogether impossible.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> He +contended, with the mind of a prophet, that a day might +come when “two army corps may mutually annihilate +each other in a second”; then he believed that “all +civilized nations will recoil and disband their troops.” +On January 7, 1893, three years before his death, he +wrote to the Baroness from Paris.⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> “I should like to +dispose of a part of my fortune by founding a prize +to be granted every five years—say six times, for if +in thirty years they have not succeeded in reforming +the present system they will infallibly relapse into +barbarism.... If the Triple Alliance, instead of +comprising only three states, should enlist all states, +the peace of the centuries would be assured.” Affirming +his belief in “reasonable Socialism,” he deplored +the custom of leaving large fortunes to heirs; too often +the results were lapses in mental ambitions and industry.</p> + +<p>On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel died suddenly +in his workshop at San Remo. For a long time he +had realized his condition of reduced vitality. He +consulted doctors unwillingly and heeded their counsel +with reluctance. He kept a record of his own pulse +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>and heart action but he never desisted from a full +day’s work in his laboratory. His last letters have a +sad note that is sometimes sarcastic yet he kept faith +in and with humanity to the last. He had been carefully +considering the disposal of his fortune, determined +that it should contribute to progress in science +and literature, for the welfare of mankind and the +education towards world peace. His will startled the +civilized world by its originality and idealism. The +man who had been most successful in inventing elements +of destruction, by a paradox, had left most of +his large fortune to constructive, creative purposes.</p> + +<p>Because he distrusted many lawyers he had been +his own legal adviser in large measure; sometimes he +had acted as his own secretary, lest an outsider might +abuse his confidence. In appointing M. Ragnar +Sohlmann as executor, he explained that here “was +a man who had never asked anything of me.” (Later +the manager of the factory at Bergen became associate +executor.) He left legacies of five thousand pounds +each to his nephews but some efforts to “break the +will” were threatened. Emanuel, then head of the +family, refused to sanction such interference and, after +many complications and delays, the will was allowed, +and varied equivocal, or impractical, conditions were +interpreted by “Code of Statutes,” issued by the King +of Sweden, June 29, 1900.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> + +<p>From this pamphlet is quoted here the extract from +the will:⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> “Extract from the Will and Testament of +Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Engineer, which was +drawn on the 27th day of November, 1895: ‘With +the residue of my convertible estate I hereby direct my +executors to proceed as follows: They shall convert +my said residue of property into money, which they +shall then invest in safe securities; the capital thus +secured shall constitute a fund, the interest accruing +from which shall be annually awarded in prizes to +those persons who shall have contributed most materially +to benefit mankind during the year immediately +preceding. The said interest shall be divided into +five equal amounts, to be apportioned as follows: one +share to the person who shall have made the most +important discovery or invention in the domain of +Physics; one share to the person who shall have made +the most important chemical discovery or improvement; +one share to the person who shall have made +the most important discovery in the domain of Physiology +or Medicine; one share to the person who +shall have produced in the field of Literature the most +distinguished work of an idealistic tendency; and +finally, one share to the person who shall have most +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>or best promoted the Fraternity of Nations and the +Abolishment or Diminution of Standing Armies and +the Formation and Increase of Peace Congresses.’”</p> + +<p>In further details the will provides: “The prizes +for Physics and Chemistry shall be awarded by the +Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm; the one +for Physiology or Medicine by the Caroline Medical +Institute in Stockholm; the one for Literature by the +Academy in Stockholm (<i>i.e.</i> Svenska Akademien) and +that for Peace by a Committee of five persons to be +elected by the Norwegian Storthing. I declare it to +be my express desire that in the awarding of prizes, no +consideration whatever be paid to the nationality of +the candidates, that is to say, that the most deserving +be awarded the prize, whether of Scandinavian origin +or not.”</p> + +<p>Because of difficulties in interpreting certain sections +and elucidating other phrases, this Code of Statutes +was drawn up “in consultation with a representative, +nominated by Robert Nobel’s family, and submitted to +consideration of the King.” After adjustments of interests +had been “amicably entered into” by the testator’s +heirs, June 5, 1898, it was decreed that “The +instructions of the will above as set forth shall serve +as a criterion for the administration of the Foundation +(Nobel) in conjunction with the elucidations and +further stipulations contained in this Code.” One +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>“stipulation” was that “each of the annual prizes +founded by the said will shall be awarded at least +once during each ensuing five-year period after the +year in which the Nobel Foundation comes into force.” +The phrase used by Nobel in the words relating to the +prize in Literature, “the Academy at Stockholm,” was +interpreted “as understood to be the Swedish Academy—Svenska +Akademien.” Another significant explanation +was—the “term, ‘Literature,’ used in the +will shall be understood to embrace not only works +falling under the category of Polite Literature, but +also other writings which may claim to possess literary +value by reason of their form or their mode of exposition.” +This last provision, which seems elastic +and somewhat vague, has not led thus far to undue +difficulties and criticisms.</p> + +<p>The phrase “during the preceding year,” as applied +to scientific and literary achievements alike, was a +strange, impractical provision which was well interpreted +broadly in the Code thus: “only such works +or inventions shall be eligible as have appeared ‘during +the preceding year’ is to be understood, that a work +or invention for which a reward under the terms of +the will is contemplated, shall set forth the <i>most modern +results</i> of work being done in that of the departments +as defined in the will to which it belongs; works +or inventions of older standing to be taken into consideration +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>only in case their importance has not previously +been demonstrated.”</p> + +<p>Two other stipulations were made that have been +applied to the awards in literature, as elsewhere, “The +amount allotted to one prize may be divided equally +between two works submitted, should each of such +works be deemed to merit a prize.” Thus, in 1904, +the prize was divided between José Echegaray, the +Spanish dramatist, and Frédéric Mistral, the poet +of Provence; again, in 1917, it was divided between +two Danish writers, Gjellerup and Pontoppidan. On +the other hand, if all of the “works under examination +fail to attain to the standard of excellence” required, +no award need be given that year, the “amount +added to the main fund or may be set aside to form +a special fund for that of one of the sections to promote +the object of the testator.” In 1914 and 1918 there +were no awards in literature.</p> + +<p>To facilitate impartial judgment it was directed that +each of the four sections of the Swedish corporation +of award “shall appoint a committee—their Nobel +Committee—of three or five members to make suggestions +with reference to the award.” To be a member +of this Nobel Committee one need not be “a +Swedish subject or member of the Corporation.” +“How are these candidates for prizes nominated?” is +a frequent question. It is stated explicitly in this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>Code of Statutes, section 7: “It is essential that +every candidate for a prize under the terms of the will, +be proposed as such in writing by some duly qualified +person. A direct application for a prize will not be +taken into consideration.” Further explanations are +given of “qualifications entitling a person to propose +another for the receipt of a prize”—he must be “a +representative, whether Swedish or otherwise, of the +domain of Science, Literature, etc. in question and the +grounds for the award must be stated in writing.” In +this same Code of Statutes, in a later section (p. 23) +there is expanded information regarding “The right +to nominate a candidate for the prize-competition”—this +shall “belong to Members of the Swedish Academy +and the Academies in France and Spain which +are similar to it in constitution and purpose; members +also of the humanistic classes of other Academies and +of those humanistic institutions and societies that are +on the same footing as academies, and teachers of +æsthetics, literature and history at universities and +colleges.” For publicity it was provided that these +“regulations shall be publicly announced at least every +five years in some official or widely circulated journals +in each of the three Scandinavian countries and in the +chief countries of the civilized world.” The names of +candidates must be presented by February first of each +year.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p> + +<p>Although the successful candidates for the various +prizes are usually “broadcasted,” in these days of +shrewd journalism, sometime in November, the official +announcements of the awards are made on “Founder’s +Day,” the tenth of December, the anniversary of the +death of the testator. “At this time the adjudicators +shall make known the result of their award and shall +hand over to the winners of the prizes a cheque for +the amount of the same, together with a diploma and +a medal in gold, bearing the testator’s effigy and a +suitable legend.” The last word may be more freely +translated, <i>inscription</i>. In further explanation the +Code of Statutes decrees: “It shall be incumbent on +a prize winner, whenever feasible, to give a lecture on +the subject treated of in the work to which the prize +has been awarded, such lecture to take place within +six months of the Founder’s Day at which the prize +was won, and to be given at Stockholm or, in the case +of the Peace prize, at Christiania.” This feature of +the award has not often been “feasible” in literature, +although a few of the winners have received the prizes +in person at Stockholm and made fitting responses, as +we shall note in later chapters. The decree is final:⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +“Against the decision of the adjudicators in making +their award no protest can be lodged. If differences +of opinion have occurred they shall not appear in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>minutes of the proceedings, nor in any other way be +made public.” To assist in their investigations and to +further the “aims of the Foundation, the adjudicators +shall possess powers to establish scientific institutes +and other organizations. The institutes so established +and belonging to the Foundation, shall be known under +the name of Nobel Institutes.”</p> + +<p>While the general administration of the funds and +awards rests with the Nobel Foundation, consisting of +five persons (“one of whom, the President, shall be +appointed by the King and the others by the delegates +of the adjudicating corporations”) the specific work +of investigation and judgment rests with the organization +cited in the will. In literature, the “prizes are +assigned” by the Swedish Academy, after careful investigation +by its members, and the assistance of the +Nobel Institute and Librarian. A large collection of +books, mostly of modern writings, forms the Library. +In all languages, translations, when necessary, are +found here, also reports concerning works of recent +publication. The Swedish Academy was founded by +King Gustavus III in 1786. It has devoted itself to +“the arts of elocution and poetry, to the preservation +of purity, force and elevation of diction in the Swedish +language both in scientific works and products of pure +literature.” Annual prizes have been offered, for scores +of years, in elocution and poetry. Eighteen members, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>all Swedes, comprise this Academy, of which the King +is patron. He appoints the Inspector of the Nobel +Institute of the Swedish Academy but its “immediate +management is by a member of the Academy, chosen +by that body.”</p> + +<p>Two conditions of the will of Alfred Nobel have +been faithfully followed—the recipients in all branches +have done something (if not “most”) “to benefit humanity”; +in the second place, “no consideration whatever +has been paid to the nationality of the candidates,” +in the way of favoritism. The most reasonable +criticism of the awards, especially in literature, has +been a failure to carry out what seems to have been the +assumed, but not expressed, desire of the donor, +namely, to <i>stimulate</i> work as well as to <i>reward</i> past +achievements. Otherwise, why that puzzling phrase +about “the year preceding”? Not wholly without +foundation is the comment that too many of the +awards in literature have been “tombstones rather +than stepping-stones.” Many of the earlier recipients +were past seventy, with productive faculties low, before +the honor. It is a satisfaction to the public to +know that a worthy writer has had world recognition +before he dies, and that his last days may have many +comforts possible through the financial award of about +$40,000—but such conditions do not seem in accord +with the spirit of the Nobel will and the attitude of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>the donor toward creative work. The awards have +been too often retroactive rather than stimulating to +further writing. Other winners, as will be noted later, +have accomplished vigorous literature, <i>after</i> the award +as well as <i>before</i> the honor.</p> + +<p>During the years from 1901, when the first prizes +were given, to 1925, twelve nationalities have been +represented in literature. Germany and France have +had the largest percentages in awards: Spain, Italy, +Poland, Norway, Sweden have had two winners each. +Great Britain (including the awards to Rabindranath +Tagore and to Yeats as well as Kipling) has been +thrice honored. Denmark divided the prize one year; +Switzerland came into the lists with her poet, Carl +Spitteler. In science and “promotion of peace,” +America has such names on the roster of honor as A. +A. Michelson in physics, T. W. Richards in chemistry, +Dr. Alexis Carrel in medicine, and Theodore Roosevelt, +Elihu Root and Woodrow Wilson in the “peace +prize.”</p> + +<p>What have been the influences of the will of Alfred +Nobel and the awards upon international literature? +An unquestioned result has been to arouse both curiosity +and aspiration among writers and readers. No +other prizes, among any peoples, have caused such +widespread interest. The announcement of the Nobel +prizes each year has become an event of outstanding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>significance. Journals enter into competition, in recent +years, to get the first word over the wires and to +publish the most informing articles upon the winners. +Tense interest precedes and follows the awards. +Whatever may be one’s individual opinion about the +justice in every instance, the fact remains that the +chosen writer becomes the center of study and discussion +for the current season and later years. To some +critics this method of appreciation is offensive; sometimes +it may seem to be a sensational “thrust into the +limelight” of an insignificant or mediocre writer. In +the majority of cases, the result is like that of a strong +telescope which can distinguish the “fixed stars from +the meteors” in the literary horizon.</p> + +<p>The second influence is upon writers of every nationality—an +incentive to produce “a distinguished +work of an idealistic tendency,” some book which will +prove of “benefit to humanity.” This term, idealistic, +is difficult to render in all languages. In the +French explanation of the will, it is explicit, “le plus +remarquable dans le sens de l’idéalisme.” It is not +easy to justify the prizes in literature, in several cases, +if one emphasizes the usual meaning of “idealistic.” +Occasionally, the award was given for some less recent +work, some hitherto unappreciated note of idealism +in an earlier writing. Two examples, among many, +are Björnson’s tales of peasant life, with interwoven +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>sagas and poetry, <i>Arne</i> and <i>A Happy Boy</i>, or Mistral’s +<i>Mireio</i>, the pastoral poem of Provence which was +written more than forty years before the prize was +given. In these two cases, as will be noted later, there +was appreciation of efforts to rescue a dialect or language +from literary desuetude. Upon both writers +and readers, the influence of the Nobel awards in +literature has been to promote broader interests and +sympathies, more earnest study of standards and aspirations +in widely separated races.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Westminster Review</i>, 156, 642.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> <i>The Life of John Ericsson</i> by William Conant Church, 2 Vols., +New York, 1901.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> Vance Thompson, in <i>Cosmopolitan</i>, September, 1906.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> <i>Memoirs of Bertha von Suttner; Records of an Eventful Life</i>, +Vol. I, p. 210, New York, 1910. By permission of Ginn & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. I, p. 438.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> Nobel Stiftelson, The Nobel Foundation, Code of Statutes given +at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on June 29, 1900 (Stockholm, 1901). +Objects of the Foundation. From copy in Library of Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, section 10.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + POETS OF FRANCE AND PROVENCE + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1901 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Sully-Prudhomme, René François Armand, member of the +French Academy, born 1839, died September 7, 1907: “as an +acknowledgment of his excellent merit as an author, and especially +of the high idealism, artistic perfection, as well as the +unusual combination of qualities of the heart and genius to +which his work bears witness.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>There has been a steadily cumulative interest in the +Nobel prizes, during the last twenty-five years. Proof +is found by comparing journals of 1901 and 1925, +with reference to data and discussion of prize winners +of the respective years. That the will of Alfred Nobel +was an epochal document, in the history of science and +literature, was a slowly recognized truth. What is +idealism in literature? What writers will be candidates +with books “of idealistic tendency”? How +important will be the influence of such awards? Such +were queries in many minds. The meaning of idealism +is elastic in interpretation, as examples among the +winners will testify. A general principle holds, however, +in past and present standards—the idealistic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>writer sees <i>beyond</i> nature and externals; he sees “with +the eye of the spirit.” The difference has been expressed +in fitting analogy, by contrast between a photograph +and a portrait of the same individual—if the +latter is painted by an intuitive artist, with vision and +insight, as well as artistic technic.</p> + +<p>René François Armand Sully-Prudhomme, the first +author to win the prize in literature, in 1901, received +adulatory comments from French journals and several +pages of <i>personalia</i> and criticism in literary magazines +of England, Germany, Scandinavia, and America. +For more than forty years he had been recognized as +one of the greatest living poets, the philosophical poet +of the nineteenth century in France, about whose life +and work there was inadequate information in English +translations; the inadequacy is still apparent. The +French Academy was happy that one of its members +should have been chosen for this honor, the first on +the list of international candidates. Born in Paris, +May 16, 1839, this French poet evidently belonged to +the nineteenth century, in its middle and later decades, +rather than to the twentieth century and its productive +or prophetic writers.</p> + +<p>In the poetry of Sully-Prudhomme are found, almost +always, two elements sometimes in conflict, wistful +tenderness and serious, challenging reflection. +This combination of traits may be explained, in part, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>by the circumstances of his inheritance and childhood. +For ten years his mother had waited to marry her +lover, the father of the poet; four years after their +marriage, he died. Devoted to her son and believing +that he had marked skill in science, she gave him every +possible chance for education; but his home life was +lacking in gayety or lighter interests. At the Ecole +Polytechnique in Paris, René Sully-Prudhomme excelled +in mathematical sciences and his future seemed +assured as a scholar and teacher. Then an illness +affected his eyes so seriously that he had to abandon +concentrated study and he began to write poems of +philosophic trend, questioning the meaning of life yet +vibrating with emotion.</p> + +<p>The first collection of his poems, <i>Stances et poèmes</i>, +appeared when he was twenty-six years old. It was +received with encomiums from critics and sold so well +that he determined to relinquish the hope of ever becoming +either a scientist or a lawyer and decided that +he would devote his time to poetry. In this collection +is found “Le vase brisé,” one of the most familiar of +his poems, with the extended analogy between the +broken vase, the verbena, and the heart; here is the +echoing refrain,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Il est brisé, n’y touchez pas.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The next year <i>Les Epreuves</i>, translated as <i>The Test</i>, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>was published, followed by <i>Les Solitudes</i> three years +later, and <i>Les vrais tendresses</i>, in 1875. In these +poetic meditations he showed the conflict, ever present +in his own nature, between the reason and the emotions,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent12">le combat sans vainqueur</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Entre la foi sans preuve et la raison sans charme.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Even more pronounced was this motif of disharmony +in the two later poems, <i>La Justice</i> and <i>Le Bonheur</i>. +By his countrymen he was hailed as successor to Victor +Hugo and was elected to membership in the French +Academy in 1881. In the long and best known poem +by Sully-Prudhomme, <i>La Justice</i>, there are strong +traces of the influence of Lucretius, the classic poet +whom he admired and translated with felicitous skill. +A Prologue and an Epilogue and eleven “Vigils” comprise +the structure of this poetic search for the element +of <i>Justice</i>. There are two divisions; Part I is entitled +“Silence au cœur,” rendered into English as “Heart, +Be Silent!” and Part II, “Appel au cœur.” The +chosen medium of expression is dialogue between two +symbolic characters, “The Seeker,” who analyzes all +things with metaphysical exactness, and “A Voice” +which proclaims the “divine aspect in all things.” +Justice cannot be located in the Universe; it may be +found in the heart of man, “which is its inviolable and +sacred temple.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + +<p>As <i>La Justice</i> exemplified the search for Justice in +Universal Nature, so <i>Le Bonheur</i>, the second long +poem published in 1888, was a symbolic epic, a progress +towards supreme Happiness by three routes—curiosity, +sensuousness and science, virtue and sacrifice. +The three Parts have been called, in one translation, +“Intoxication,” “Thought,” “The Supreme +Flight” (“Le suprème essor”). There are lines that +are strained in effect, far less convincing and harmonious +than the arguments in <i>La Justice</i>; by contrast there +are passages of poetic beauty. Faustus and Stella are +the two seekers after Happiness. In a climax—which +might be more dramatic—they “take flight” spiritually +from the temptations and disillusionments of earth +to seek, in sacrifice, their fruition of possible happiness.</p> + +<p>One of the colleagues of Sully-Prudhomme, who has +written frankly of his personality and poetry, is Anatole +France. In the biography of the latter, <i>Anatole +France: the Man and His Work</i> by James Lewis May,⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +among the vignettes written of the group of poet-friends +who discussed life and literature, is a typical +sketch of Sully-Prudhomme, at the age of thirty-six, +“mathematical and even geometrical in his sonnets.” +He stressed his intellectuality, as well as his handsome +face and wealth. More illumining, and far more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>sympathetic, is the analytic study of Sully-Prudhomme, +in the chapter entitled “Three Poets” in Anatole +France’s critiques <i>On Life and Letters</i>, first series, +translated by A. W. Evans.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Comparing Sully-Prudhomme, +François Coppée and Frédéric Plessis, +the critic finds in the first poet, “in his favour, not only +the mysterious gifts of the poet but, in addition, an absolute +sincerity, an inflexible gentleness, a pity without +weakness, and a candour, a simplicity that lift his philosophical +scepticism, as it were on wings, into the lofty +regions whither formerly the mystics were exalted by +faith.” As a friend and confidant, he extols this man +of gentle melancholy, sentimental yet reflective, romantic +yet philosophical.</p> + +<p>Edward Dowden, in his essay on “Some French +Writers of Verse,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> attributes the seeming unhappiness, +or melancholy of Sully-Prudhomme, reflected +in some of his poetry, to the lack of a creed or a +loyalty to which he can give absolute devotion. He +calls him “an eclectic” and finds an analogy in the +tale of <i>Merlin</i>, the poetical romance by Edgar Quinet. +He stresses the almost feminine sensitiveness of this +poet, a woman’s tenderness which in no way diminishes +his manly vigor. An individual of “harder or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>narrower personality” would not have been so disturbed +by the conflicts between reason and emotion, +by the deterrents to perfect happiness. Ill health for +many years was a contributory factor, doubtless, to +many moods of introspective sadness. He suffered +from partial paralysis in later years. Francis Grierson +in <i>Parisian Portraits</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> gives a graphic, intimate +picture of this “typical Academician” with grace of +manners and intuitive insight into people, waging war +against his illusions with the part of his mind that was +scientific, and maintaining his poetic vision by his sensitive +emotions. At his home in the rue de Faubourg +he always welcomed younger poets. He seldom went +into society, although he was often found at the salons +of Countess Diane de Beausacq, the author of +<i>Maximes de la vie</i>. This woman of independent +spirit and beautiful hair, who was dressed in tones +of lavender, was an inspiration to the poet. Together +they discussed philosophy and art; Sully-Prudhomme +emphasized “the aristocracy of the mind,” +the eternal quality of poetry, music, taste, and judgment.</p> + +<p>After the Franco-Prussian War, which was a great +strain upon the physical and spiritual endurance of the +poet, Sully-Prudhomme wrote <i>Impressions</i> that awakened +political discussion and revealed his pervasive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>idealism. <i>Essays upon the Fine Arts</i>, <i>The Art of +Versification</i> and <i>Le testament poétique</i> were expressions +of his poetic studies and theories. On the other +hand, <i>Que sais-je?</i> which appeared in 1895 was another +index to his scientific inquiries into natural +science, philosophy, and metaphysics. A commentator +upon these queries, well entitled <i>What Do I +Know?</i>, has said that his last words might be summarized +as “peut-être.” Doubts, yet never bitterness of +despair, characterize his speculative poetry. Four +years after he received the Nobel prize and two years +before his death, at the age of sixty-six, he wrote <i>La +vraie religion selon Pascal</i>, a last record of his profound +search for spiritual values in life and literature.</p> + +<p>Several of the shorter poems by Sully-Prudhomme, +chosen from the five volumes of his verse, have been +translated into English by such poets as Arthur +O’Shaughnessy, E. and R. Prothero, and Dorothy +Frances Guiney. These metrical interpretations are +found in anthologies of French poetry by H. Carrington +and Albert Boni. The latter has included a few +of the most representative and musical of Sully-Prudhomme’s +poems in <i>The Modern Book of French +Verse</i>. A wistful love poem is here entitled “A Supplication,” +translated by I. O. L.:⁠<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh! did you know how the tears apace</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Fall by a lonely heart, alas!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I think that before my dwelling place</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sometimes you did pass.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And did you know of the hopes that arise</div> + <div class="verse indent2">In wearied soul from a pure young glance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Maybe to my window you’d lift your eyes</div> + <div class="verse indent2">As if by chance....</div> + </div> +<hr class="tb"> + + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">But if you knew of the love that enwraps</div> + <div class="verse indent2">My soul for you, and holds it fast,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quite simple over my threshold, perhaps,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">You’d step at last.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>More typical of this scientist-poet is the verse-picture +entitled “The Appointment,” translated by +Arthur O’Shaughnessy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis late; the astronomer in his lonely height,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Exploring all the dark, descries afar</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Orbs that like distant isles of splendor are,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And mornings whitening in the infinite.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Like winnowed grain the worlds go by in flight,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or swarm in glistening spaces nebular;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He summons one disheveled wandering star,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Return ten centuries hence on such a night.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The star will come. It dare not by one hour</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cheat Science, or falsify her calculation;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Men will have passed, but watchful in the tower</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Man shall remain in sleepless contemplation;</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> <div class="verse indent0">And should all men have perished there in turn,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Truth in their place would watch that star’s return.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Not all of the verses by Sully-Prudhomme are as +pictorial as these selections. There is an unevenness +more than usual in his meditative stanzas. While +his popularity waned with the years and new rivals, +he was long the honored bard of France, with name +linked with that of Victor Hugo in his meditative +poetry. The Nobel prize stimulated new interest +among world readers; more translations and critical +estimates appeared—and are still being issued. +Maurice Baring in a recent book of criticism, <i>Punch +and Judy and Other Essays</i>, has written words of +succinct analysis of this French poet: he distinguishes +him as “a poet who thinks and not a thinker who +merely uses poetry for recreation.” He adds, of his +simple yet fastidious form, “Other poets have had a +more glowing imagination; his verse is neither exuberant +in colour nor rich in sonorous combinations of +sound. The grace of his verse is one of outline and +not of colour; his compositions are distinguished by +his subtle rhythm; his verse is as if carved in ivory, +his music is like that of a unison of stringed instruments.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Frédéric Mistral</span></p> + +<p class="ph4">Poet of Provence</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1904 has been awarded, one half to:</p> + +<p>Mistral, Frédéric, born 1830, died March 25, 1914: “for +reason of the fresh originality, rich genius, and true artistry in +his poetry that faithfully mirrors the nature and life of the +people of his native country; and also with respect to his significant +activity as Provençal philologist.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Three years after the first Nobel prize in literature +had been awarded to Sully-Prudhomme, it came again +to a writer who is ranked among French authors, +although he is distinctively of Provence, Frédéric Mistral. +This poet of <i>Mireio</i>, a pastoral epic, if one may +use the term, and the preserver of the Provençal language +from literary oblivion, shared the financial +award and the honor for 1904 with Echegaray, the +Spanish dramatist, who is discussed in another chapter +of this book. Mistral was seventy-four years old +when this recognition came to him; he lived for ten +years longer, wielding influence upon world literature +and receiving reverential homage in his own Provence. +His home in later years was in the same quiet town of +Maillane, in the Bouches-du-Rhône where he was born +in 1830.</p> + +<p>His father was a wealthy farmer who had aspirations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>to make his son a lawyer. The boy was sent to +school at Avignon and, later, took his degree at +Nîmes University and studied at Aix. One of the +teachers at Avignon was Joseph Roumanille who had +a large share in restoring interest in the language. +He compiled a fixed orthography of the Provençal +forms and revived racial sentiment in the schools. +Like his pupil, Mistral, he was a firm advocate of +classic poetry. Twenty years before, a famous barber, +Jacques Jasmin of Agen, had recited troubadour +songs throughout the villages and had preserved, by +voice, many native legends and folk ballads. It is +said that he gave his receipts in money to charity and +that, within a few years, he had gathered $300,000. +The school-teacher formed a society of young men at +Avignon, including “seven poets and dreamers,” +among whom were numbered Roumanille, Mistral, +Aubaniel, Mathieu, and Brunet. They pledged allegiance +to Poetry, Love, and Provence. There has +been general acceptance of the statement that Mistral +gave to this group of poets the name of Félibres, originally +called “The Seven Félibres” or Scribes of the +Law. They agreed to write in their native language +of Provence, to extend its knowledge and use, so that +it might be more than a dialect. They maintained +that it was similar to that of the medieval troubadours, +that it came from the language of Rome and thus was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>the parent tongue of Italy, France, and Spain. Although +some of these statements have been seriously +questioned by orthographers, the enthusiasm of these +Félibres was acclaimed and literary masterpieces followed; +the celebrations of the Félibres are still noteworthy +festivals.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p32" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p32.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of The New York Public Library</i> + </blockquote> + <p>FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Another story is that Mistral, who was very fond +of his mother, began to write his verses in French and +brought them to her, assured of her encouragement +and praise. Alas! his mother could not read French, +although she was confident that her son was a poet +of rare genius. “Let us sing in the language of our +mother!” was the determination of the youth. He +collected legends, folk-tales, and romantic episodes +from every possible source near his home in Provence. +In 1858 was published the first edition of <i>Mireio</i>, the +pastoral epic which has held its literary rank, with +increasing appreciation, for more than sixty years. +Roumanille was sponsor for this work; the next year +a French translation was made by Mistral and the +book amazed Parisians by its poetic charm. It was +dedicated to Lamartine. Mistral was compared, by +enthusiastic critics, to Vergil, Theocritus, and Ariosto.</p> + +<p>Into the twelve Cantos of his poem Mistral wove +many local customs and personal memories. The +<i>mas</i>, or farmstead, was modeled from his own home +and Ramoun, the wealthy <i>mas</i>-dweller, had many +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>traits of his own father. Familiar to him from boyhood +had been the festivals and daily tasks here portrayed—the +wheat-threshing, the snail-gathering, the +fireside meals, the dance of the farandole on the eve +of harvest day. In outline it is a simple, somewhat +conventional theme. Mireio, daughter of a “farmer-prince,” +loved the son of a poor basket-weaver; their +romance had days of joy and nights of deep sorrow; +the epical climax of the death of Mireio at the Church +of the Holy Maries is relieved of its grim tragedy +by the words of hope on the lips of the dying heroine.</p> + +<p>There is a gayety of spirit, a zest of life in the opening +lines of Invocation, the poet’s promise to tell the +life story of this lovely girl of fifteen and her innocent, +ardent passion:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I sing the love of a Provençal maid;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">How through the wheat-fields of La Crau she strayed</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Following the fate that drew her to the sea.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unknown beyond remote La Crau was she;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And I, who tell the rustic tale of her,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Would fain be Homer’s humble follower.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">What though youth’s aureole was her only crown?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And never gold she wore, nor damask gown?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll build her up a throne out of my song,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And hail her queen in our despis’d tongue.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mine be the simple speech that ye all know,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shepherds and farmer-folk of lone La Crau.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> + +<p>The romantic episodes are told in the cantos, “The +Suitors,” “The Battle,” “The Witch,” “The Saints,” +“Death.” Graphic pictures of local customs and +setting are suggested by the subtitles “Lotus Farm,” +“Leaf-Picking,” “The Cocooning,” and “the Camargue” +(or salty marshes of the Rhône). Exquisite +songs are interspersed like this in Canto III, “The +Cocooning”:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou the moon wilt be,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sailing in glory,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll be the halo white</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hovering every night</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Around and o’er thee.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">If thou become a flower,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Before thou thinkest,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll be a streamlet clear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And all the waters bear</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That thou, love, drinkest.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><i>Mireio</i> was made familiar to American readers of +the last generation by the translation of Harriet Waters +Preston (Boston, 1872). Several excerpts from +her verse-interpretations of this and Mistral’s later +poems are to be found in <i>Library of the World’s Best +Literature</i>, edited by Charles Dudley Warner; an +excellent sketch of the poet is found here. With +unique, virile words George Meredith has rendered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>into verse some stanzas from Canto X, “The Mares +of Camargue”:⁠<a id="FNanchor_17_17" href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A hundred mares, all white! their manes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Like mace-reed of the marshy plains</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thick-tufted, wavy, free o’ the shears:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And when the fiery squadron rears</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bursting at speed, each mane appears</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Even as the white scarf of a fay</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Floating upon their necks along the heavens away.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of +<i>Mireio</i> was celebrated at Arles, Calvé sang the “Song +of Magali” and noted French actors and opera artists +rendered Gounod’s <i>Mireille</i>, which is based upon +Mistral’s pastoral. The most dramatic canto is the +eighth, the flight of the heroine across the rocky +plains of La Crau, finding shelter at the shrine of the +Holy Maries. The maiden’s prayer for help in her +hour of need, for understanding of her love for her +“handsome Vincen,” is wistful and appealing. Two +cantos have been devoted to revival of these old +legends of the Holy Maries. Disciples of Jesus, +driven from Palestine after his crucifixion, according to +tradition, were set afloat in a barque by their persecutors. +They had neither sail nor oars. They were +washed ashore on the sacred soil where now stands the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>village of Les Saintes Maries. Among these disciples +were Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, their +servant Sarah (who was the patron saint of gypsies), +Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, and Trophine, +one of the oldest and wisest of the disciples +who converted to Christianity the town of Arles.</p> + +<p>Two long narrative poems followed <i>Mireio</i>—<i>Calendau</i> +and <i>Nerto</i>. The former, published in 1867, +is more potent in dramatic skill than the earlier pastoral. +It has lines of emotional intensity, when the +heroine, a Princess who lost her rank because of love +for a humble suitor, inspires him by her fine spirit and +tales of prowess and chivalry. “The Scaling of +Ventour” is a dramatic episode in this poem. Two +stanzas, translated by Harriet Waters Preston, indicate +the action and colorful quality; this is a description +of “the catch”:⁠<a id="FNanchor_18_18" href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet had we brave and splendid sport, I ween,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For some with tridents, some with lances keen,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fell on the prey. And some were skilled to fling</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A winged dart held by a slender string.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The wounded wretches, ’neath the wave withdrew,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trailing red lines along the mirror blue.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Slowly the net brimful of treasures mounted;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Silver was there, turquoise and gold uncounted,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rubies and emeralds million-rayed. The men</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Flung them thereon like eager children when</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They stay their mother’s footsteps to explore</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her apron bursting with its summer store</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of apricots and cherries.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>There is less atmosphere in <i>Nerto</i>, an epic tale of the +last days of the Popes at Avignon and “the miraculous +burial-place,”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Aliscamp of history</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Far below Arles.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The legend of this spot is one of the best portions of +<i>Nerto</i>:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent14">out of the heaven came,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our Lord himself to bless the spot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And left, if the tale erreth not</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The impress of his bended knee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rock-graven. Howso this may be,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Full oft a swarm of angels white</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bends hither, on a tranquil night,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Singing celestial harmonies.⁠<a id="FNanchor_19_19" href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Among the collections of lyrics of love and patriotism +by Mistral the earlier volume in 1875, entitled <i>Les +Isles d’Or</i>, contained songs in many moods. Lamartine +listened to recital of these and other verses “in the +sweet nervous idiom of Provence, which combines the +Latin pronunciation with the grace of Attica and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>serenity of Tuscany.” He adds, “The verses of +Mistral were liquid and melodious, they pleased without +intoxicating me.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_20_20" href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> The later collection, issued in +1912, was entitled <i>Les Olivades</i>. Mistral thus explained +the title: “The days that grow chill and the +swelling seas—all things tell me that the winter of +my life has come, and that I must without delay gather +<i>my</i> olives and offer the virgin-oil on the altar of God.” +At this time the poet was eighty-two years old. He +had written an autobiography, <i>Mes origines</i>, with +reminiscences of his youth, which was translated as +<i>Memoirs of Mistral</i> by Constance Elisabeth Maud; +the lyrics of Provence were rendered into English here +by Alma Strettell (Mrs. Lawrence Harrison).</p> + +<p>Few writers have had more intensive love of +country than Mistral. He refused the offer of a +chair in the French Academy because it would necessitate +leaving Provence; he was given prizes by the +Academy and badges of the Legion. Late in mature +years he married a beautiful young woman of Arlesian +family; she has been crowned Queen of the Félibres, +in a yearly festival of contests and songs. Towards +the close of the nineteenth century Mistral began collecting +specimens of Provençal flowers, rocks, and +archeological relics for a museum at Arles; he called +this his “last poem.” In a typical <i>mas</i>, or farmstead, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>he placed these collections and equipment of varied +kinds, showing the customs of the land. He represented, +also, certain feasts and traditions by wax +figures. Among others, here is the Arlesian legend +of the feast of Noël and the visit of three women to a +mother and her first-born; one brings a match that +the child’s body may be straight, another brings an +egg, that his life may be full, and a third brings salt, +symbol of wisdom.⁠<a id="FNanchor_21_21" href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> A large part of the Nobel prize +money was used by Mistral for the housing and equipment +of this Museum.</p> + +<p>Alphonse Daudet, like Mistral, is a native of +Provence. The natives admire the literary grace and +wit of the former, “even if he may laugh at us occasionally,” +they say, but they <i>love</i> Mistral. For ten +years the latter worked upon his <i>Comprehensive Lexicon +of Ancient and Modern Provençal</i>, which was +published in two large volumes in 1886. He was +honored by the educated classes and loved by the +peasantry, landowners, and boatmen of the Rhône. +In 1897 he incorporated into his narrative in verse, +<i>Le poème du Rhône</i>, many customs and songs of the +days before steamships had increased the speed of +travel and reduced its picturesqueness. In twelve +cantos he celebrated this famous river and its border +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>towns. A dramatic scene recalled the flight of Napoleon +across the border from Russia. As poetic art +this poem is inferior to <i>Mireio</i> or <i>Calendau</i>; it lacks +spontaneity yet it has musical measures.</p> + +<p>Poet of the soil was Mistral, akin in his simplicity +and loyalty to Burns and Whittier, although more of a +scholar and technician than either of these writers of +verse. Like them, however, he created anew the life +of his rural people; he touched daily incidents with +poetic beauty. He received many distinguished visitors +from every country in his later years and treasured +letters from scholars of every land. Among +the latter was a letter from Theodore Roosevelt +written when he was President and had received +a copy of a new edition of <i>Mireio</i>; to the poet he acknowledged +his indebtedness of many years for the +delights that he had found in this wistful love poem of +Provence, which mirrored so perfectly the traditions +and life of the people.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1901.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> London and New York, 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> London and New York, 1922, pp. 133-144. By permission of +Dodd, Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> <i>Studies in Literature</i>, London, 1892.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> London, 1913, pp. 66-81.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> <i>The Modern Book of French Verse</i>, edited by Albert Boni, New +York, 1920. By permission of Boni & Liveright.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> <i>Punch and Judy and Other Essays</i> by Maurice Baring, New York, +1924, pp. 216-219. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1904.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17_17" href="#FNanchor_17_17" class="label">[17]</a> <i>Poems</i> by George Meredith, New York, 1897, 1898. By permission +of Charles Scribner’s Sons, and the heirs of George Meredith.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18_18" href="#FNanchor_18_18" class="label">[18]</a> By permission of the Atlantic Monthly Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19_19" href="#FNanchor_19_19" class="label">[19]</a> Translated by Harriet Waters Preston. By permission of Atlantic +Monthly Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20_20" href="#FNanchor_20_20" class="label">[20]</a> <i>Cours familier de littérature.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21_21" href="#FNanchor_21_21" class="label">[21]</a> “Frédéric Mistral: Poet of the Soil” by Vernon Loggins, <i>Sewanee +Review</i>, March, 1924.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + TWO GERMAN SCHOLARS: THEODOR + MOMMSEN—RUDOLF EUCKEN + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1902 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Mommsen, Theodor, Professor of History at the University +of Berlin, born 1817, died November 1, 1903: “the greatest +living master of the age in the art of representing history, +taking into especial regard his monumental work, <i>Römische +Geschichte</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_22_22" href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>France was the first country to be honored by the +Nobel prize in literature; Germany was the second. +In 1902, Theodor Mommsen, whose records of +scholarship included history, law and archeology, was +the chosen candidate. He was eighty-four years old +and lived for only a year after the award. While +there was gratification among his countrymen and +friends in other lands, at his recognition and this high +honor, yet there were adverse comments in several +journals about the perversion of the intent of Nobel’s +will. The recipient had finished his work; the award +could never quicken him to further research or expression +of idealism. This choice showed the intention +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>of the Swedish Academy to consider “literature” in a +broad sense, including contributions of scientific value +as well as those of artistic merit.</p> + +<p>Garding, in Schleswig, was the birthplace of +Mommsen; his school days were spent at Kiel. Before +he was thirty years old he had been employed by +the Berlin Academy to decipher and examine Roman +inscriptions in Italy and France, because of marked +accuracy and zest in research. He combined the reading +of law with that of history and, in 1848, was +called to the department of law at Leipzig University. +Always fearless in political convictions and ardent in +Liberalism, he was obliged to retire from this University +because of active participation in the political +issues of 1848-1849. Two years later he was called +to professorship of Roman law at Zürich; after service +here for two years he accepted a similar position +at Breslau. In all these places he was recognized as +magnetic in the classroom and inspirational in his +contact with University students from all parts of +the civilized world. In 1858, he went to the University +of Berlin as Professor of Ancient History and +there extended his influence among scholars and lay +readers.</p> + +<p>Although specific in his interests and a student of +deep earnestness, he had read and traveled widely; +as conversationalist he excelled, informed upon topics +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>in almost every branch of learning and activity. To +him has been attributed the oft quoted sentence, “Each +student must choose his special field of labour but he +must not imprison himself within its confines.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_23_23" href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> He +was called “the modern Erasmus” because of his +versatile knowledge. He wrote with facility and +grace, as well as vigor, whether his theme was a +monumental <i>History of Rome</i>, or a journalistic discussion +of current affairs. In political creed he belonged +to the National Liberal Party. He was, however, +never partisan in his ultimate purposes and hopes for +future union of factions. He opposed Bismarck in +his tenets and sometimes won over him in courts of +law and in the Prussian House of Delegates, by his +keen, logical mind. At the same time, he admired the +Chancellor very much and said, “What a calamity it is +for us all that political animosity should deprive us of +the privilege of mixing socially with such a man!” +On principle, he was opposed to British attitude +towards the Boers, and gave his allegiance to the +revolutionists. Again, he deplored the strained relations +at times between his country and England and +asserted, “What a pity that two great nations of kindred +race should remain at loggerheads!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_24_24" href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> He detested +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>slavery and considered the Civil War in the +United States “a holy crusade.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_25_25" href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>More than one hundred volumes of original writing +and translations from the Latin and Germanic languages +are listed under Mommsen’s name in large +German libraries. Edward A. Freeman, a critic and +historian of international repute, has called Mommsen +“the greatest scholar of our times, well-nigh the greatest +scholar of all times.” His writings show mastery +of law, languages, customs, archeology, coins, inscriptions +and monuments, that are of inestimable value to +students. He was editor of <i>Corpus inscriptionum +Latinarum</i> which was issued by the Berlin Academy +of which he was secretary for many years. To the +average reader, however, the name of Theodor +Mommsen will always be associated with his <i>History +of Rome</i>, written 1854-1856, which still maintains its +authenticity and popularity. As a writer, Mommsen +was always illumining, with a vivid style; he was often +dramatic. He touched descriptive scenes with grace +and color but he was convincingly realistic in his portrayal +of events and characters. He unfolded a large +canvas but he kept a true focus and threw a strong light +upon both individuals and group-pictures, from the +early days of Rome to the death of Julius Cæsar.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p> + +<p>Although his masterwork was entitled <i>History of +Rome</i>, he explained, in the Introductory Chapter, that +he intended “to relate the history of Italy, not simply +the record of the city of Rome.” While the Romans +represented the most powerful branch of the Italian +stock, yet they were only a branch—but this civic +community of Rome gained sovereignty over Italy +and the world of its day. Like the historian Freeman, +Mommsen insisted upon “the unity of history,” the +similarity of human nature from 1800 <span class="allsmcap">B. C.</span> to modern +times. Few writers have surpassed him in revivifying +historical characters. He had strong likes and dislikes, +prejudices which he could impress upon the +reader, although he was generally justified in his statements +and balanced in his estimates. The portrait of +Cicero, which “was bitten with vitriolic energy,” as +Mr. Buchan has said, in <i>Some Eighteenth Century Byways +and Other Essays</i>, has been most widely quoted; +it is less impartial than his characterizations of Hannibal, +Sully, and Cæsar. By temperament and political +bias, Mommsen was an admirer of Julius Cæsar; he +has given to him a living portraiture.</p> + +<p>The pictorial Chapter IV in Book III, descriptive +of Hannibal’s Passage of the Alps, is a world-famous +extract from this <i>History of Rome</i>. In the same +chapter is the analysis of Hannibal’s character, so +often quoted: “He was primarily marked by that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>inventive craftiness, which forms one of the leading +traits of the Phœnician character; he was fond of +taking singular and unexpected routes: ambushes and +stratagems of all sorts were familiar to him; he studied +the character of his antagonists with unprecedented +care.... The power which he wielded over men is +shown by his incomparable control over an army of +various natives and many tongues.... He was a +great man; wherever he went, he riveted the eyes of +all.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_26_26" href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>There is history of dramatic incident, written with +pictorial skill, in such passages as the Battle of Cannæ, +the story of the Gracchi, and the Crossing of the +Rubicon. The breadth of Mommsen’s interests are +suggested by such later chapters as those on Roman +Religion, Manners, and Literature and Art. While he +was deeply interested in the past, and informed about +its aspects and personalities, he was alert in all movements +of the present and their trends. He looked to +the future with prevision and optimism. In the Introductory +Chapter to his famous <i>History of Rome</i> he +contrasts modern history with past cycles of culture +which will be repeated and adds: “And yet this goal +will only be temporary: the grandest system of civilization +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>has its orbit, and may complete its course; but +not so the human race, to which, just when it seems to +have reached its goal, the old task is ever set anew, +with a wider range and with a deeper meaning.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_27_27" href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> +In spirit, Mommsen was entitled to rank as an idealist, +a worker “to benefit mankind.” In literary +achievements he richly deserved the Nobel prize; his +researches had enriched human knowledge beyond +those of other scholars; his writings appealed to +the reader of ordinary mentality as well as to the more +intellectual; his vision and faith in human progress +were undimmed.</p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Rudolf Eucken</span></p> + +<p class="ph4">German Philosopher</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1908 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Eucken, Rudolf, Professor of Philosophy at the University +of Jena, born 1846: “because of the sincerity of his search for +truth, the penetrating power of thought, the clarity of vision, +the warmth and force of interpretation with which he has, in +his numerous works, cultivated and developed an ideal world +philosophy.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_28_28" href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In 1908, six years after the Nobel prize came to +Mommsen, it was again awarded to a German scholar, +Rudolf Eucken. By translation and lectures in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>countries other than his own, this recipient was no +stranger to readers of current literature. Born in +1846, in Aurich, East Friesland, Eucken was younger +than the majority of the earlier winners; he accomplished +much writing and lecturing after the honor +had been given. His mature life was devoted to a +struggle against the materialistic philosophy of his +day. He was a worthy winner of a prize for “the +most distinguished work of an idealistic tendency” in +his country. His incessant purpose was expressed in +his autobiography: “My reminiscences tell about all +of the struggle to prevent the externalization of life. +This externalization is not, it is true, the defect or +fault of one particular nation; it is found in every +nation and a radical change is needed in each.... +Every man who shares the conviction that a spiritual +reformation is needed will follow with a kindly sympathy +the modest efforts which are recorded in my +reminiscences.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_29_29" href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>His native province, East Friesland, is an agricultural +and trading region in Germany, near Holland, +with occasional fisheries as industry. His birth town, +Aurich, is the commercial and social center. The +boy’s childhood was somewhat sad; he was the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>first child born to his parents after ten years of marriage, +and his father died when the lad was five years +old. He had a series of misfortunes in his infancy +and youth: his throat was badly torn in the effort to +extricate a curtain-fastener which he nearly swallowed +as a baby; he had scarlet fever and wrong treatment, +so that he was threatened with blindness for a time +but recovered; a younger brother’s death added to the +family gloom.</p> + +<p>Rudolf Eucken inherited studious inclinations. His +father, spending his days in the postal service, was +a fine mathematician. His mother (daughter of a +clergyman who was a leader of Radicalism) was well-read +in science and ambitious for her son; the latter +records that she was, also, a practical housewife. After +the father’s death their finances were low and +the mother took lodgers to add to her income. She +was determined that Rudolf should be well educated, +that he should become a philosopher or scientist. He +recalls his debt to her in his reminiscences. At the +gymnasium at Aurich he showed interest in mathematics +and in music. A strong influence of those +plastic days was his teacher, Reuter, who was forced +to retire by the bureaucracy because of his liberalism. +Other professors who left traces upon his development +were Letze and Teichmüller. For a time he was at +the University of Berlin. After experimental teaching +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>he was called to Basel as professor of philosophy. +His mother went with him but their plans for happy +years together were shattered by her death.</p> + +<p>Basel was at this time a small University with about +one hundred and fifty students; Eucken came into close +contact with these in the classroom and outside activities. +Already he had begun to write studies upon +philosophers of classic days, Aristotle and others. +In 1873 he accepted a call to Jena University where +he was brought into comradeship with such brilliant +associates as Kuno Fischer, Haeckel and Hildebrand. +The issue, in 1878, of Eucken’s book, <i>Fundamental +Ideas of the Present Day</i> (or <i>The Fundamental Concepts +of Modern Philosophic Thought</i>) aroused sudden +interest among scholars of every country in this +daring, idealistic philosopher of Jena University. +The basic idea was to emphasize the harmonious relations +of history and criticism. At the request of +President Noah Porter of Yale University, a translation +of this book into English was made by Professor +M. Stuart Phelps; thus American readers became acquainted +with this German scholar who was to enter +later into friendly contact with academic organizations +here.</p> + +<p>By his marriage, in 1882, to Irene Passow, Eucken +increased his prestige among intellectual and social +leaders. He says that his wife “was not one of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>learned women,” but that she had intellectual interests, +gifts in art, and fine administrative ability. Her +mother was the daughter of the noted archeologist, +Ulrich, born in Athens; thus Eucken’s circle of friends +widened among scientists and historians. He continued +to write books with cumulative power, like <i>The +Life of the Spirit</i>, <i>Contributions to the History of +Modern Philosophy</i>, <i>The Problem of Human Life as +Viewed by the Great Thinkers</i>, <i>Life’s Basis and Life’s +Ideals</i>, <i>Christianity and the New Idealism</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_30_30" href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Many +of his own countrymen, who were materialistic philosophers +or monistic evolutionists, criticized Eucken +severely; he declared the German press “ignored him.” +He popularized religious philosophy, especially under +such titles as <i>The Truth of Religion</i>, and <i>Can We +Still Be Christians?</i> He was invited to deliver lectures +in Holland, France, England, and America.</p> + +<p>Some of these later books followed the award of +the Nobel prize in 1908. He was called “the winning +dark horse of that year”; he said that the honor came +as “a great surprise” to him. As further recognition +he was made a member of the Swedish Academy of +Sciences. The comments in the German press were +noticeably restrained beside the enthusiastic tributes +in France, Holland, and England. In 1911 he went +to England and, later, to America as academic lecturer; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>he was “exchange professor” and gave lectures +at Harvard University, Columbia University, the +Lowell Institute at Boston, and Smith College. His +wife and daughter came with him to America and were +guests in the homes of Professors Moore and Münsterburg +at Cambridge. The reader of his Reminiscences +will smile at some of the comments upon Americans +and his reception here. In Germany, with the +arrival of “an exchange professor” and his first lecture, +there is a demonstration of welcome, with formal program +and the presence of notables in statescraft as well +as letters. He found no such condition at Harvard +University. He presented himself to President +Lowell and was told, “You may begin at once.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_31_31" href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> By +contrast he says, with naïveté, President Butler of +Columbia University gave a banquet in honor of +Eucken and Bergson, who were lecturing in New York +at the same time.</p> + +<p>Among Americans whom the German scholar met +with friendly contact were Andrew Carnegie and +Roosevelt. He says of the latter, “With Roosevelt +I had a very spirited conversation on American idealism +and its future, in which he gave proof of considerable +historical knowledge.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_32_32" href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He found Americans, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>as a class, alert but not well informed on European affairs, +especially German history. After he returned +from America, he planned a trip to Japan and China, +hoping to carry into the Orient his principles of idealistic +philosophy; he sought coöperation of all nations +in “solving problems of life.” The war interfered +with this project and caused him deep depression. +He tried in every way to appeal to the less materialistic +traits of his people. In 1915, he wrote <i>The +Bearers of German Idealism</i>, a book which sold copies +by the tens of thousands and supplemented, in a way, +his earlier volume, <i>The Historical Significance of the +German People</i>. He found the war “the saddest moment +in German history”; he felt the nations were disloyal +to themselves and sentiments of honor. His +daughter, a musician of rare gifts, lost her lover during +the war. In his sons, one a physician and another +a political economist, Eucken saw examples of many +of his idealistic influences.</p> + +<p>The writings of Eucken, especially those of religious +trend, have been popular in America, as well as England. +Several of his essays have been collected and +translated by Meyrick Booth. <i>In the Harper’s Library +of Living Thought</i> is the translation by Lucy +Judge Gibson and W. R. Boyce Gibson of his <i>Christianity +and the New Idealism</i> (1909 and 1912). <i>The +Meaning and Value of Life</i> had one of the same translators; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>Joseph McCabe, who translated the autobiography, +has rendered, also, <i>Socialism: an Analysis</i> +(1922). Among other books in constant demand at +libraries are <i>Religion and Life</i>, the lectures which he +gave in London, Oxford, and elsewhere, 1911, and +<i>Ethics and Modern Thought: a Theory of their Relations</i>, +which were the Deems lectures, delivered in 1913 +at New York University. These are translated by +Margaret von Seydewitz from the German manuscript. +<i>Can We Still Be Christians?</i> with its challenging title +(1914) is a careful, tolerant study of historic Christianity, +an advocacy of a religion which will adapt +itself to the demands of daily life. Spirituality and +morality must combine to form a high level of progress +and the Church must become “a repository of the facts +and tasks of life itself.”</p> + +<p>Comparisons have often been made between Eucken +and two other modern thinkers and writers on philosophy +of kindred motive—Adolf Harnack and Henri +Bergson. The former, who has been professor at +Leipzig and Berlin, author of such stirring books as +<i>What Is Christianity?</i> and <i>History of Dogma</i>, has +the German background while Bergson, in his <i>Creative +Philosophy</i> has written an epoch-making book with +dissimilar but potent deductions. The two men, +Eucken and Bergson, have been discussed in a discriminating +essay by E. Hermann who thus summarizes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>the message of the Nobel prize winner in philosophy: +“Eucken stands before us today as perhaps the greatest +thinker of our age and the protagonist of a new +idealism which satisfies our demands for moral reality +as no idealistic philosophy has ever done, and as the +teacher who has most fully and boldly developed the +religious implications of ethical idealism. His philosophy +of life is an insistence upon the supremacy of the +spiritual. His defence of freedom is a doctrine of +spiritual liberty rooted in the saving initiative of God +and our dependence on Him. His vindication of our +personality is the rescue of the free, God-centered personality +from the thralldom of a self-centered individuality.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_33_33" href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>Especially interesting is the Nobel Lecture, delivered +at Stockholm, March 27, 1909, by Eucken, translated +by Alban G. Widgery, Cambridge, 1912 (W. Heffer +and Sons). As an introductory thought, Eucken emphasizes +that we are living in an age when tradition +has become a subject of doubt and new ideas are struggling +to guide our lives. The two terms, “<i>Naturalism +or Idealism</i>,” which form the title of this Nobel address, +have become confused in meaning and have +caused misunderstandings. To Eucken, Naturalism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>means “faith in man’s relation to Nature”; Idealism +accepts this faith but asks if this is the whole of +life or if there is not another kind of life, also. He +pleads for domination of “The True, the Good and +the Beautiful” in life, not merely utilitarian aspects. +Life is not just a reflection of a given reality but a +striving upward; it does not <i>find</i> another world but +“it may <i>produce</i> one.” Idealism which deals with +such expansion of daily life has no new aims to-day +beyond that of classic times but it is emphasized, because +“we have been driven beyond the standards of +Naturalism.” The task before literature is coöperation +in this effort to reach a higher level, “to purify +and confirm, to make the fundamental problems of our +spiritual existence <i>impressive</i> to us, to raise life above +the mere transient culture, by the realization of something +eternal.” This, as he interprets it, was the idea +of Alfred Nobel in his will and awards; this has been +the life purpose of Eucken as teacher and writer.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22_22" href="#FNanchor_22_22" class="label">[22]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1902.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23_23" href="#FNanchor_23_23" class="label">[23]</a> <i>Bookman</i>, 18: 346.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24_24" href="#FNanchor_24_24" class="label">[24]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> 346-348, December, 1903, article on Mommsen. By permission +of the Editor of <i>The Bookman</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25_25" href="#FNanchor_25_25" class="label">[25]</a> <i>Some Eighteenth Century Byways and Other Essays</i> by John +Buchan, Edinburgh and London, 1908, William Blackwood & Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26_26" href="#FNanchor_26_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>History of Rome</i> by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William P. +Dickson, New York, 1908, Vol. II, pp. 244, 245. By permission of +Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27_27" href="#FNanchor_27_27" class="label">[27]</a> By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28_28" href="#FNanchor_28_28" class="label">[28]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1908.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29_29" href="#FNanchor_29_29" class="label">[29]</a> <i>Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels</i> by himself, translated +by Joseph McCabe, New York, 1922. By permission of Charles +Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30_30" href="#FNanchor_30_30" class="label">[30]</a> For further titles, see <a href="#Page_279">bibliography</a> and list of translators.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31_31" href="#FNanchor_31_31" class="label">[31]</a> <i>Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels</i> by himself, translated +by Joseph McCabe, New York, 1922, p. 162. By permission of +Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32_32" href="#FNanchor_32_32" class="label">[32]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33_33" href="#FNanchor_33_33" class="label">[33]</a> <i>Eucken and Bergson: Their Significance for Christian Thought</i>, +by E. Hermann, Boston, 1912, p. 87. By permission of The Pilgrim +Press.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + BJÖRNSON: NORWEGIAN NOVELIST + AND PLAYWRIGHT + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1903 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Björnson, Björnstjerne, born 1832, died April 26, 1910: +“as a tribute acknowledging his noble, splendid and varied +works of art which have always been distinguished by freshness +of inspiration, and, at the same time, by unusual purity +of soul.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_34_34" href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<figure class="figcenter illowp49" id="i_p58" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p58.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation</i> + </blockquote> + <p>BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>One of the five members elected by the Norwegian +Storthing, to select the winners of the prize for the +promotion of peace, under terms of Nobel’s will, was +Björnstjerne Björnson. It was a fitting choice for he +was a vigorous advocate of world peace, an ardent +worker in all causes for “the benefit of mankind.” +When the award in literature for 1903 was given to +him, he was already known as “Norway’s Father.” +As writer of novels and plays, he had been read more +widely than almost any other Scandinavian of his day, +at that time surpassing Ibsen in translated works. +As publicist and orator, as manager of theatres and +civic legislator, he exerted national influence. In giving +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>him the Nobel prize the adjudicators had in memory, +especially, his earlier tales of peasant life which +intermingled poetic idealism with sagas and realistic +pictures of Norwegian life. His plays of later years, +<i>Beyond Human Power</i>, <i>The Editor</i>, and <i>Sigurd +Slembe</i>, were problem plays that awakened discussion +in many countries; they were more universal and realistic +in tone than the earlier fiction. Björnson had a +remarkable combination of virility and gentleness. +He was a Viking clansman, as he often averred, but +he was also a poet, loving the folk songs and pictorial +delights of rugged Norway with deep, ardent affection. +The symbol of his strength, represented twice in the +lingual root of his name—Björn, a bear—was fitting +for his large, fearless mind and spiritual energy. +He was a warrior when occasion demanded resistance +to evil; he was a skald when he wrote tales of peasantry.</p> + +<p>He was born in 1832 at Kvikne, in the valley of the +Dovre Mountains. He lived seven years after the +Nobel prize was given to him, keeping his mentality +alert until almost the end of his seventy-eight years. +His father was pastor in this small place, without +beauty of scenery or fertility of soil. When the boy +was six years old the family moved to a region of +marked contrasts, in Romsdale. His memories of this +picturesque scenery and his delights in the valleys, hills, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>and fjord, were commemorated in his poem, “Over +the Lofty Mountains.” His school days at Molde +were busy and happy; he read with insatiable appetite +for sagas and history, and became devoted to the +Swedish poet, Wergeland. At seventeen he went to +Christiania to prepare for the University. Here he +was a schoolmate of Ibsen; with typical humor he +wrote—and treasured—this doggerel of these early +days:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Overstrained and lean, of the colour of gypsum,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Behind a beard, huge and black, was seen Henrik Ibsen.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The two families cemented their friendship of many +years by the marriage of Björnson’s daughter, Bergliot, +a singer of much talent, to the son of Ibsen.</p> + +<p>At Christiania, Björnson became much interested in +Danish literature, especially drama, and he began his +play, <i>The Newly-married Couple</i>, which was not +finished until a decade later. He completed, however, +a one-act play, <i>Between the Battles</i>, which was staged +in Christiania with only moderate success. For a time +he abandoned drama and devoted himself to the peasant +tales, to characters of types familiar to him, against +a background of Norwegian folklore. He was proud +to recall that his forefathers were peasants; he knew +the common people and sympathized with their customs +and ambitions. He sought to blend sagas and scenes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>from modern life, with mutual interpretation. Those +early stories of simple life, <i>Arne</i>, <i>The Fisher Maiden</i>, +<i>A Happy Boy</i>, and <i>Synnöve Solbakken</i>, were well received +in Denmark and Germany, as well as his own +country. Soon they were translated into English and +commended for their simplicity, poetry, and national +spirit. Sir Edmund Gosse, writing in the late 1880’s, +said of Björnson: “His spirit was as masculine as a +Viking’s and as pure and tender as a maiden’s. +Through these little romances there blows a wind as +fragrant and refreshing as the odour of the Trondhjem +balsam willows, blown out to sea to welcome the newcomer; +and just as this rare scent is the first thing that +tells the traveller of Norway, so the purity of Björnson’s +<i>novelettes</i> is usually the first thing to attract a +foreigner to Norwegian literature.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_35_35" href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Georg Brandes, in his excellent study of +Björnson in <i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i>, +affirms that the popularity of these peasant tales +was not so great throughout Norway as one is inclined +to believe from later reports. “People loved the +peasant in the abstract” but they did not know him, +nor were they deeply interested in his welfare or his +aspirations. Moreover, the critics found them sentimental +and failed to appreciate the legends and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>parables which were often interspersed, like the +beautiful symbolism in the opening paragraphs of +<i>Arne</i> with the several trees—juniper, oak, birch, and +heather—seeking to clothe the mountain. In the two +tales, <i>Synnöve Solbakken</i> and <i>Arne</i>, Björnson represented +two heroes of Norwegian life; Thorbjörn of +the first story was the youth of physical virility, developed +by contact with gentler influences; Arne, by +contrast, was dreamy and poetic, in need of more robust +experiences. There are wistful strains of melody +in this story of <i>Arne</i>—this yearning for the ideal. +Sir Edmund Gosse has translated one of these lyrics in +rhymed couplets:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Through the forest the boy wends all day long,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For there he has heard such a wonderful song.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He carved him a flute of the willow tree,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And tried what the tune within it might be.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The tune came out of it sad and gay,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But while he listened it passed away.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He fell asleep, and once more it sung,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And over his forehead it lovingly hung.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He thought he would catch it and wildly woke,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the tune in the frail night faded and broke.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Oh God, my God, take me up to Thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the tune Thou hast made is consuming me.”</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And the Lord God said, “’Tis a friend divine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Though never one hour shalt thou hold it thine.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet all other music is poor and thin</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By the side of this which thou never shalt win.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_36_36" href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The character of Arne, the poetic, restless boy who +tries to break away from the rock-ribbed confines of +Norway, is an individual and a national type; his +mother, Marit, is one of the most real, appealing +women of Norwegian fiction. In these two peasant +tales, and the lighter, more joyful romance of <i>A Happy +Boy</i>, is found some of the best poetry by Björnson. +Many of these verses are found in <i>Poems and Songs</i>, +translated by Arthur Hubbell Palmer from the Norwegian +in the original meters.⁠<a id="FNanchor_37_37" href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> “Synnöve’s Song,” +“The Day of Sunshine,” and “Ballad of Tailor Nils,” +from <i>Arne</i>, are typical examples of his lyrics. Included +in this anthology are patriotic poems. One of +these, entitled “Song of Norway,” from <i>Synnöve Solbakken</i> +(1859) is one of the most familiar of National +Songs, beginning,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we love this land that towers</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Where the ocean foams;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rugged, stormswept, it embowers</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Many thousand homes.</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Love it, love it, of you thinking,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Father, mother dear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And that night of saga sinking</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Dreamful to us here.⁠<a id="FNanchor_38_38" href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Thirty years later, for the silver wedding anniversary +of Herman Anker and his wife, Björnson +wrote another poem of patriotic and idealistic strains, +beginning,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent4">Land That Shall Be!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thither, when thwarted our longings, we sail,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sighs to the clouds, that we breathe when we fail,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Form a mirage of rich valley and mead</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Over our need,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Visions revealing the future until</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Faith shall fulfill,—</div> + <div class="verse indent4">The land that shall be!⁠<a id="FNanchor_39_39" href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Ever after a visit to Upsala University and a longer +residence in Copenhagen, Björnson had cravings to +write and to direct plays. In the latter position he +served for a time, 1857-1859, at Bergen. His first +plays were of saga heroes and chieftains, like Halvard +of <i>Between the Battles</i> and <i>Sigurd Slembe</i> or +<i>Sigurd the Bad</i>. They possess militant virtues and +moral integrity but they are driven to misdeeds and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>despair by opposition to their good intentions. Thus +Sigurd seeks to make peace with his half-brother, +Harold Gille, but is betrayed into revenge and murder. +Mr. Brandes suggests that in these plays the spiritual +sufferings of Björnson—who would elevate and harmonize +the Norwegian people but finds himself misunderstood +and rejected in his idealism—are revealed by +analogy. He stresses the difference between Björnson +and Ibsen in this respect and others; the former seeks +comradeship and unity; the latter is “solitary by nature.” +Björnson portrays all aspects of nature; Ibsen +seldom uses such descriptions. With fine distinctions +between the two men, in nature and literature, Mr. +Brandes writes: “Henrik Ibsen is a judge, stern as +one of the judges of Israel of old; Björnson is a +prophet, the delightful herald of a better age. In the +depths of his nature, Ibsen is a great revolutionist.... +Björnson’s is a conciliatory mind; he wages warfare +without bitterness. His poetry sparkles with the +sunshine of April, while that of Ibsen, with its deep +earnestness, seems to lurk in dark shadows.” Ibsen +loved the idea; Björnson loved humanity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_40_40" href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in his study of Björnson, +in <i>Adventures in Criticism</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_41_41" href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> divides his writings into +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>three periods which he calls “simplicity, confusion and +dire confusion.” The first group of tales are those +of idyllic type, already considered in <i>Arne</i> and <i>A +Happy Boy</i>; the second represent a transition towards +the realistic and self-conscious, exampled in <i>The +Fisher Maiden</i> and <i>Magnhild</i>; the third, showing more +complications of thought and style, are like <i>The Heritage +of the Kurts</i> (originally entitled <i>Flags Are Flying</i>) +and <i>In God’s Way</i>. The influence of German +and French realists may be traced in these later novels, +especially the former with its portrayal of polygamous +conditions. Other critics consider <i>Magnhild</i> an advance +in characterization over any previous fiction by +Björnson, especially in the musician Tande and the +relationship between him and Magnhild. If the +author intends to show that a woman may be happy +in other ways than love, he does not “get the message +over” until it is interpreted by Mr. Brandes or other +critics. Rationalism mingles with idealism in the +first scenes of <i>In God’s Way</i>.</p> + +<p>As the years passed, Björnson traveled on the continent, +in England and to America for a visit in 1881. +He sharpened his outlook upon life but he never lost +his “passion for truth,” his hatred of oppression in any +form, his belief that individuals and nations might be +joined by friendship rather than separated by antagonisms. +He was deeply impressed by certain forms +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>of hypocrisy which he witnessed in Norway and he +attacked such abuses in the problem plays, <i>The King</i>, +<i>The Editor</i>, and <i>The Bankrupt</i>. Unlike the traditional +patriot who says, “My country—right or wrong—but +my country!” Björnson adopted as his slogan, +“Norway must be right at all cost!” His plays, +which revealed innate evils, made him unpopular with +politicians and brought about threats of violence. He +used to tell, with humor, of the visit of some aggressive +opponents among the young men who threw stones at +his windows but went away singing the refrain of his +National Song,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Yes, we love this land that towers, etc.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>As dramatist, Björnson attained a skill which is +being recognized by students of to-day. <i>The Newly-married +Couple</i>, which was, probably, the first play to +be written in original draft but held for later publication, +has a psychological theme, well constructed—the +adjustment necessary between the love of a maiden +for her parents and the new, strange love for her husband. +The characters are vital and the lines effective. +Another early play, <i>Lame Hulda</i> (<i>Halta Hulda</i>), +was more emotionally intense; the heroine, lame for +twenty-four years, experiences a brief, tragic passion +for a man whose love is pledged elsewhere. There +is lack of those elements of comedy that lighten +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>the lessons of <i>The Newly-married Couple</i>. To the +earlier period of play writing belongs, also, <i>Maria +Stuart in Scotland</i>, a brilliant retelling of the familiar +romance but lacking dramatic situations at the close; +Björnson was always at his best in Scandinavian background; +nevertheless John Knox is a commanding +personality in this play. In this time of mental conflict +between the ideal and the realities in life as they +affected his development, he wrote that vigorous novel, +<i>The Fisher Maiden</i>, with vivid characterization, and +one of his most pictorial poems, <i>The Young Viking</i>.</p> + +<p>Truth is the demand of the dramatist, in every +crisis in life, as depicted in his problem plays, from +<i>The Bankrupt</i> to <i>A Gauntlet</i>. With skill he shows +The King, thwarted in his high ideals and his love, +trying to “serve the freedom of the spirit,” to be a +true “citizen-king” but ending his life in despair because +of the deceit of others. <i>The Bankrupt</i> has a +strong character in Berent, the lawyer; the “problem” +centers about the merchant’s temptation to use the +money of others. <i>The Editor</i> aroused much controversy, +because it was claimed that Björnson had here +satirized a Swedish editor but the charge was unfounded; +rather the editor and his victims, Halvadan +and Harald, typify journalistic conditions in every land. +Mr. Brandes suggests that the dramatist may have +been modeling these two brothers from the older poet, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>Wergeland and himself, in their struggles to create +love for truth and freedom. In <i>Leonarda</i>, with +lyrical as well as dramatic qualities, Björnson spoke +a message of more tolerance and historical significance +through three generations of Norwegian society. +Two excellent translators of his plays have +been Edwin Björkman and R. Farquharson Sharp +(<i>see</i> <a href="#Page_279">bibliography</a>).</p> + +<p>By translation and inclusion in selected plays of +merit from many languages, <i>Beyond Human Control</i> +has become one of the most familiar of Björnson’s social +dramas. It is one of the chosen plays in <i>Chief +Contemporary Dramatists</i>, Series I, by Thomas H. +Dickinson. There are two parts to this drama, with +differing <i>motifs</i>—the first in chronology and most +widely read and staged is <i>Beyond Human Power</i> (or +<i>Beyond Our Power: Over Ævne</i> I, 1883) dealing with +problems of religious faith and fanaticism; the second +part (<i>Over Ævne</i> II, 1895) treats of differences of +opinion between labor and capital. The first part, a +complete play, has been given throughout Europe and +was performed in New York in 1902, with Mrs. +Patrick Campbell in the leading rôle. The characters +are strongly balanced in interest; the wife of +the self-sacrificing, impractical pastor, Clara Sang, +is a masterly delineation of wifely loyalty and maternal +responsibility. The Bishop is well drawn in antithesis +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>to Pastor Sang. <i>A Gauntlet</i> created discussion in +Norway because of its daring theme—the advocacy of +the same standards of social purity for men and women. +It is less effective dramatically but morally it is +vigorous.</p> + +<p>Björnson’s later work in drama includes such good +reading-plays as <i>Laboremus</i>, <i>Daglannet</i>, and <i>When the +New Wine Blooms</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_42_42" href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> As examples of literary work +after the age of seventy, to which may be added the +story, <i>Mary</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_43_43" href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> with emotional power, they stand as +testimonials to the vigor, mental and spiritual, of this +worthy “Viking” of our day. After he received the +Nobel prize, in accord with the proviso of the Code +of Statutes, he made a noteworthy address upon the +theme, “Poetry As a Manifestation of the Sense of +Vital Surplus.” His own vitality and zest in life never +lapsed. He declared that the possession of a new pair +of trousers in his old age gave him a sense of delight +like that of a child and he would get up an hour earlier +“to get full enjoyment of these clothes.” Edwin +Björkman, one of the most intuitive of his many translators, +tells, in his <i>Voices of Tomorrow</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_44_44" href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> incidents in +the later life of Björnson that verify his childlike nature, +combined with serious, passionate efforts for human +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>betterment. His wife, an actress by training, was +his amanuensis and critic; between husband and wife +existed a rare bond of sympathy: at formal dinners, +and on social occasions of varied kinds, Björnson insisted +that his wife should sit at his right hand, in spite +of other conventions. As writer, speaker, “lay +preacher,” and civic adviser, Björnson has an assured +rank among “The Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth +Century.”</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34_34" href="#FNanchor_34_34" class="label">[34]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1903.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35_35" href="#FNanchor_35_35" class="label">[35]</a> <i>Northern Studies</i> by Edmund Gosse, Walter Scott, London, 1890. +By permission of Sir Edmund Gosse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36_36" href="#FNanchor_36_36" class="label">[36]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 32. By permission of Sir Edmund Gosse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37_37" href="#FNanchor_37_37" class="label">[37]</a> American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1915. By permission of +translator and publisher.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38_38" href="#FNanchor_38_38" class="label">[38]</a> This has been adapted to song by Nordraak; another, “Forward,” +has been set to music by Grieg.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39_39" href="#FNanchor_39_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Poems and Songs</i> by Björnstjerne Björnson, translated by Arthur +Hubbell Palmer, from the Norwegian in the original meters, London +1915. By permission of the American-Scandinavian Foundation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40_40" href="#FNanchor_40_40" class="label">[40]</a> <i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i> by Georg Brandes, +translated by Rasmus B. Anderson, New York, 1923, p. 345. By permission +of Thomas Y. Crowell Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41_41" href="#FNanchor_41_41" class="label">[41]</a> London and New York, 1925. New edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42_42" href="#FNanchor_42_42" class="label">[42]</a> Translated by Lee M. Hollander, <i>Poet Lore</i>, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43_43" href="#FNanchor_43_43" class="label">[43]</a> Translated by Mary Morison, 1910.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44_44" href="#FNanchor_44_44" class="label">[44]</a> New York, 1913.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V + <br> + GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI—ITALIAN POET + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1906 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Carducci, Giosuè, Professor in the History of Literature at +the University of Bologna, born 1835, died February 16, 1907: +“in consideration not only of his wide learning and critical research, +but, in the first place, as homage to the plastic energy, +the freshness of style, and the lyric strength that distinguish his +poetry.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_45_45" href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In 1906, when he was seventy years old, Giosuè +Carducci, the greatest of living Italian poets of that +time, for more than two score years professor at the +University of Bologna, was announced the winner of +the Nobel prize in literature. As in the case of +Mistral, the choice had fallen upon a poet of patriotic +influence, although the Italian was far more independent +in spirit, with less sentimental devotion to his +country. At different periods he had been a critic of +both the Liberal and the Monarchial parties; sometimes +he had seemed to be vacillating in his political +convictions but he had always been an ardent patriot +for Italy of the past, with hopes for a future of greater +freedom and world influence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> + +<p>Carducci was born at Val di Castello, July 27, +1835. His father, of a Florentine family, was a +country doctor who had been imprisoned for political +activities before the son was born. When Giosuè +was three years old, the family moved to Bolgheri, in +Tuscan Maremma; here the boy roamed about the +hills and valleys for eleven years; he recalled some of +his childhood memories in “Crossing the Tuscan +Maremma.” He was educated, in the first place, at +home; his father taught him Latin and his mother read +to him from the poems of Alfieri. After the turbulent +conditions of 1848 the family moved to Florence +and he was sent to the Scuole Pie; at eighteen, he was +writing <i>Sapphics and Alcaics</i>, in which he urged a return +to classic meters and early ideals of Italy. His +vein of satire was shown in mild attacks upon the +church and its restrictions upon progress. Schiller, +Byron, and Scott were his favorite authors during a +part of this formative period.</p> + +<p>In 1856 he was nominated as Professor of Rhetoric +at the Gymnasium of San Miniato al Tedesco but he +became involved in political and literary controversies. +He was refused government sanction to teach in a +position offered at Arezzo, so he returned to Florence. +He was poor and lived in extreme self-denial, frequenting +libraries, storing his mind with Greek and +Latin literature and finding some employment with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>the publisher, Barbèra, for whom he wrote prefaces, +notes, etc., for Italian classics. Two griefs came +within a year—the suicide of his brother, Dante, and +the death of his father. In memory of his brother +he wrote the lines “Alla memoria di D. C.” Happier +days came when he married the gifted daughter of his +relative and friend, Menicucci. His home life was +stimulating and sympathetic. He had four children; +to a daughter he gave the symbolic name of “Liberty.” +Again death came to crush his spirit; his little boy, +Dante, three years old, died the same year as Carducci’s +mother. The latter, of fine Florentine family, +had been a loved comrade to her son; and although +he was reconciled to her death in old age, he rebelled, +in deep grief, at the loss of the little boy, declaring +“three parts of his life” had departed. The elegiac +stanzas, “Funere mersit acerbo,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_46_46" href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> written in a mood +of longing for the child, are pathetic.</p> + +<p>His poems, as collected previous to 1870, showed +political agitation and frequent bitterness and satire; +many of these had appeared in the periodical, <i>Il +Poloziano</i>. In 1860 he went to Pistoia as Professor +of Greek and Latin; there he wrote his poem, “Sicilia +e la rivoluzione,” celebrating Garibaldi’s Sicilian Expedition +of that time. During the next ten years he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>passed through political changes of allegiance; when +his <i>Hymn to Satan</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_47_47" href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> appeared, and “made him famous +in a day,” (republished in 1869 over signature of +“Enotrio Romano”) extolling the advance of Liberalism +over the reactionary influences of both monarchy +and church, he was declared to be an unqualified Republican. +It was a daring <i>motif</i> that the poet chose +for his voice of “Revolt”; it required courage, at +that time, to summon as witnesses to the progress of +the “lord of the feast, Satan,” such names as +Savonarola and Luther, Huss and Wycliffe. One +reason for the immediate popularity of this poem may +have been the flowing, almost lilting, form of four-line +stanzas.</p> + +<p>Seven years before the publication of <i>Hymn to +Satan</i>, Carducci had become identified, as professor, +with the University of Bologna; here he remained +until his death—a period of forty-six years of educational +service. The first offer from Mamiani, as +Minister of Education, was to the Turin Lycée but the +poet was unwilling to leave Tuscany. After a little +delay the chair of elocution—and later of literature—was +open to him at Bologna. His influence upon +students of all types was stimulating, always conducive +to individual expression and ambition. After the +appearance of <i>Hymn to Satan</i> he was in marked disfavor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>with the government. His liberal ideas were in +high favor with the students, however, so that it seemed +wise to “make a change” by offering him a position to +teach Latin at Naples. Carducci refused on the +ground that he was not qualified to teach Latin. He +was prohibited from continuing classroom instruction at +Bologna, on the ground of “constant opposition to +the acts of the Government.” Affairs were quieted +by a change of ministers and the poet, wisely, refrained +from promulgating political doctrines in the University, +or from giving dominance to them in his later +volumes of poems, like <i>Levia grandia</i>, in 1867, and +<i>Nuove poesie</i>, in 1873. Mr. Bickersteth has emphasized +duly the more restrained, tender note in the later +volume, following soon after the loss of his mother +and his son. So different were the lyrics from his +previous type, so surely did they show the influence +of Goethe, Schiller, and Heine, in romanticism, that +some critics accused Carducci of being a mere imitator, +or even a plagiarist. This challenge aroused his ever-present +spirit and he wrote the prose defense, with +broad as well as personal comment, <i>Critica ed arte</i>.</p> + +<p>As lecturer, he became yearly more popular and +students from distant places hastened to come under +his inspiration. He was one of the noteworthy exponents +of Dante. When Rome established a chair +of Dante Exigesis, Carducci was appointed as professor. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>Although sorry to lose him at Bologna, the +whole country applauded the honor. He hesitated, +because he was not in accord with those who interpreted +Dante by contemporary political conditions, those who +had founded the chair at Rome. Later he became +one of “four leading Dante scholars” who gave short +courses of lectures each year. At his first lecture +there was an effort to make a political demonstration +by the anti-Papal party. Among his sentences at this +first discourse he said, “Papacy and Empire, their +discord and their power, were passing away when +Dante was born—Dante who does not pass away.” +In an earlier sonnet, published in essays in 1874, he +had interpreted what he believed were Dante’s views +and the reason for his immortal fame:⁠<a id="FNanchor_48_48" href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dante, whence comes it that my vows and voice,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adoring thy proud lineaments I raise;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That, o’er thy verse, which made thee lean and wan,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The sun may set, the new dawn finds me still?</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I hate thy Holy Empire; with my sword</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I should have thrust the crown from off the head</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of thy good Frederick in Olona’s vale.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O’er church and Empire, both now ruins sad,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy song soars up, and high in heaven resounds—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Though Jove may die, the poet’s hymn remains.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>With one of those marked changes in his impulses +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>and convictions which ever characterized Carducci, he +broke away from tendencies towards German Romanticism +and declared a “literary revolution” as his purpose +in writing his most familiar odes, <i>Odi barbare</i>, +1873-1877. Back to the poetry of Greece and Rome +he would lead the people, away from the romanticists +and “sickly sentimentalism.” To his friends, Chiarini +and Targioni, who were critics of these odes, he +declared that the world’s greatest poets had been +Homer, Pindar, Theocritus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_49_49" href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +There was a great variety of meter in +this collection; several poems that lacked rhymes +seemed, to the hackneyed critics, unconventional in +form. Mr. Bickersteth has informing comments upon +Carducci’s <i>Metres in the Barbarian Odes</i> and other +poems, in his Introduction to his <i>Selection of Poems</i>, +already cited. Among the examples of the Italian +poet at his best, his most simple, flexible, and musical +lines, one recalls from this collection such verses as +“The Ideal,” “The Mother,” and “By the Urn of +Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Addressing one of his imaginary +Greek women, Lalage, he unfolds his own deep, +loving appreciation of the English poet in such couplets +as these:⁠<a id="FNanchor_50_50" href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Vain are the joys of the present, they come and they fade like a blossom,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Only in death dwells the truth and loveliness but in past days.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo, on the mount of the centuries Clio hath nimbly descended,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And bursts into song as she spreads her magnificent wings to the sky.</div> + </div> +<hr class="tb"> + + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O heart of hearts, o’er this urn, thy cold, uncongenial prison,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The warm spring blossoms again with the fragrance of flower and fruit.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O heart of hearts, thy divine great father, the Sun, hath arisen,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And lovingly bathes thee in light, poor heart that forever art mute.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This poem, inspired by the grave of Shelley, is one +of the most beautiful and appealing of the odes; to him +the English poet was, in truth, “Poet of liberty,” with +a “spirit Titanic.” In spite of the simplicity and +directness of Carducci’s diction his poems have defied +many translators, especially in English. It is interesting +to note that two of his German translators have +been winners of the Nobel prize in literature, Paul +Heyse and Theodor Mommsen.</p> + +<p>In this same volume, <i>Odi barbare</i>, was a poem which +attracted wide attention in Italy and aroused some +indignation among the former friends of Carducci who +had Republican principles. It was the tribute entitled +“To the Queen,” dated November 20, 1878. While +it was essentially an effusion to the grace, beauty, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>literary gifts of Queen Marguerite as an individual, +it resounded with the Hail! (“Long Live!”) which has +come down from Hebrew days for king and queen. +Although a Liberal to the end of his life, Carducci +relinquished his antagonism to monarchy as he grew +older and gentler in spirit. The influence of his +friend in political life, Crispi, caused a reaction in +Carducci from alliance with Republicanism, which +veered towards Socialism, and an alignment again with +the monarchical party. The final pledge of this political +change was chronicled in the tribute to King +Albert Charles in the poem, “Piedmonte,” in 1890. +In the same year the poet was elected as senator and +served for a brief time. To him Liberty now became +an ideal for art, literature and religion, as well as for +the State.</p> + +<p>Although the more serious interpreters of Carducci’s +political fluctuations trace the gradual, and reasonable, +steps from hatred of monarchy to acceptance and +even poetic homage, there are other commentators +who give a romantic flavor to the change of attitude. +They declare that the new allegiance may be explained +by a visit that the King and Queen made to Bologna. +Carducci was lame and disinclined to meet people +socially; he was immersed in his books and a few +friends, outside his University classes. The story runs +that Queen Marguerite, who was a literary critic and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>sponsor of the arts, invited the poet to an audience. +Such an invitation is a summons but Carducci went +unwillingly. He came away, however, from the visit +inspired by the Queen’s appreciative sympathy and +her literary insight. Thenceforward she was to him +“Eterno femminino Regale.” Letters passed between +the Queen and the poet. Their friendship has +been compared to that of Michelangelo and Vittoria +Colonna, in inspirational quality.</p> + +<p>As the years passed the Queen was able to serve +both the poet and her country, for Carducci’s health +and finances became impaired. In 1899 he suffered +a stroke of paralysis which crippled him somewhat +but he continued his work at the University, assisted +by his favorite pupil, the poet Severino Ferrari. That +he might not be obliged to sell his valuable library the +Queen purchased this, with the arrangement that he +might use it during his life. After his death she +purchased his home, also, and gave this to the Italian +people as a memorial, “Casa Carducci,” with a beautiful +garden, adorned with statuary that symbolizes +some of his poems. In 1904 the government gave +him a pension and the University students honored +him with a celebration. The next year the sudden +death of his assistant, Ferrari, was a terrible loss to +him and left him enfeebled in body and spirit. When +the Nobel prize was awarded the next year, he was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>unable to leave his chair to receive it; the King of +Sweden sent a deputy to Bologna to give the testimonial +in person to the aged poet. He lived only +two months after this honor; his funeral at Bologna +was attended by thousands. Because of his Florentine +descent and his literary rank, the city of Florence +offered for him a tomb in Sta. Croce, the Italian +Pantheon, but his family preferred a burial place just +outside Bologna.</p> + +<p>As a poet Carducci mingled vigor and grace to +an unusual degree. He was an artist both in his conceptions +and his forms; he never left a poem unfinished. +His historical odes, resultant from his +classical studies, are less impressive than such lyrics +as “Night,” “Fiesole,” “Idyll of the Maremma,” “Before +San Guido,” “Virgil,” and “Primo Vere” which +are found in translations by Mrs. Maud Holland.⁠<a id="FNanchor_51_51" href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> +A wistful sadness is found in many of his poems of +nature and life, a sensitiveness to insincerity, a change +from a mood of hopefulness to that of longing and +question. Such poetic traits are marked in the poem, +“Primo Vere,” a delicate spring-song with gentle sadness;</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Behold! from sluggish winter’s arms</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Spring lifts herself again;</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Naked before the steel-cold air</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She shivers, as in pain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Look, Lalage, is that a tear</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the sun’s eye that shines so clear?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Today my spirit sleeps and dreams,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where do my far thoughts fly?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Close to thy beauty’s face we stand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And smile, the spring and I:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet, Lalage, whence come those tears?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Has Spring, too, felt the doom of years?⁠<a id="FNanchor_52_52" href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In his old age Carducci declared that “his guiding +principles had been three—in politics, Italy before all +things; in art, classical poetry before all things; in +life, sincerity and strength before all things.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_53_53" href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> As he +mellowed in his political opinions, so he became less +vehement against the church and Christianity in later +writings. In truth, it was not Christianity but asceticism +and bigotry which he combated. Like many +poets he regretted the loss of some of the best marks +of pure paganism; he found in it truth and freedom, +in contrast with many evidences of falsehood and +slavery in the Christian world of his day. He did +not always get a vision of life as a whole, only a +segment which was sometimes distorted in perspective. +He was more interested in historical and poetic figures +than in creative types. Italy of the past and her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>classic literature were his ideals in his later writings. +Rejecting romanticism as exotic, he pleaded for “the +representation of reality with truth.” In summary +of his aim and its fulfillment, Mr. Bickersteth has +written with lucidity: “Carducci’s conception of +reality, considered from the artistic point of view, +controls his treatment of all the chief themes of his +poetry, as will at once become apparent if we examine +any of these at all closely. Man, Nature, Liberty, +for instance—he held it incumbent upon the poets of +his own time to deal mainly with these three, and they +constitute accordingly a large portion of the subject-matter +of his own verse.” It is difficult to identify +the word idealism with much of Carducci’s poetry +about women—for he was strongly realistic in his +love poems, in general, often compared to Walt +Whitman in his emphasis of the physical attractiveness +of woman. Again, he too often failed in his efforts +to adapt old Latin forms to modern themes and reflections. +In spite of such defects, however, Carducci’s +poetry at his best, his earnest patriotism and +his hopes for Italy, reflects his country, says Mr. +Bickersteth, “in her purest and serenest aspect, and +her ideals linked on to many, if not all, the most +cherished traditions of her past.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_54_54" href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45_45" href="#FNanchor_45_45" class="label">[45]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1907.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46_46" href="#FNanchor_46_46" class="label">[46]</a> Found in original and translation in <i>Carducci: a Selection of His +Poems</i>, etc. by G. L. Bickersteth, London, 1913, p. 141.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47_47" href="#FNanchor_47_47" class="label">[47]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48_48" href="#FNanchor_48_48" class="label">[48]</a> <i>Italian Influences: Carducci and Dante</i> by Eugene Schuyler, +New York, 1901, p. 24. By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49_49" href="#FNanchor_49_49" class="label">[49]</a> <i>Impressioni e ricordi</i> by Chiarini, p. 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50_50" href="#FNanchor_50_50" class="label">[50]</a> <i>Carducci: a Selection of His Poems</i> by G. L. Bickersteth, Copyright +by Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, 1913. By +permission of Longmans, Green & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51_51" href="#FNanchor_51_51" class="label">[51]</a> <i>Poems by Giosuè Carducci</i>: with an introduction and translations +by Maud Holland, New York, 1907.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52_52" href="#FNanchor_52_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Edinburgh Review</i>, April, 1909. By permission of Leonard Scott +Publication Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53_53" href="#FNanchor_53_53" class="label">[53]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, “The Poetry of Carducci.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54_54" href="#FNanchor_54_54" class="label">[54]</a> <i>Carducci: a Selection of His Poems</i> by G. L. Bickersteth, London +and New York, 1913. By permission of Longmans, Green & Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI + <br> + THE WRITINGS OF RUDYARD KIPLING + BEFORE AND AFTER THE AWARD + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1907 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Kipling, Rudyard, born 1865: “in consideration of the power +of observation, originality of imagination, and also the manly +strength in the art of perception and delineation that characterize +the writings of this world-renowned author.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_55_55" href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Six years passed after the first prizes were given in +literature from the Nobel fund; the countries honored +thus far had been France, Germany, Norway, Spain, +Italy, and Poland. “Where is Great Britain on the +literary map?” asked certain speakers and writers. +Names of British authors had been sent to the Committee +of the Nobel Foundation and the Swedish +Academy, with ardent commendation by individuals +and academic circles. Prominent among such names, +suggested in the press, had been Swinburne, George +Meredith, John Morley, Thomas Hardy, Barrie, and +Robert Bridges. One journal asked, “Why not Kipling?” +The answer came in the announcement that +the award for 1907 was given to Rudyard Kipling, poet +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>and story-teller. Again the issue, “What is Idealism?” +was raised and challenged by some opponents of +this choice yet, on the whole, it met with wide favor. +Kipling’s type of robust idealism was defended; said +W. B. Parker, “His idealism needs no other evidence +than the enthusiastic following he has had from +boys.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_56_56" href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p86" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p86.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><i>By courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co.</i> <i>Photograph by E. O. Hoppe</i></p> + <p> + RUDYARD KIPLING</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Combined with this <i>robust idealism</i> are two other +qualities of Kipling as writer, that have given him “the +enthusiastic following of boys”—his virility and +courage. For adolescents and college youths he has +upheld the ideals of vigorous action, of honor and +bravery, of daring in speech and deed. In his +dynamic poems and tales of <i>The Day’s Work</i>, <i>Kim</i>, +<i>Life’s Handicap</i>, and the other volumes so familiar, +he reflects his “gospel” of fearlessness, that does not +hesitate to shock some who abide by the conventional +standards of speech. Gilbert K. Chesterton has said +forceful truths about this trait of Kipling in <i>Heretics</i>: +he affirms that credit is due to Kipling for his appreciation +of <i>slang</i> and <i>steam</i>. He expands the thought +thus: “Steam may be, if you like, a dirty by-product +of science. Slang may be, if you like, a dirty by-product +of language. But at least he has been among +the few who saw the living parentage of these things +and knew that where there is smoke, there is fire—that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>is, wherever there is the foulest of things there, +also, is the purest.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_57_57" href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Mr. Chesterton declares that +Kipling’s type of courage is not that of war, nor valor +of the battle-field, but “that interdependence and efficiency +which belongs quite as much to engineers, or +sailors, or mules, or railway engineers.” Recurrent +in memory are such tales as “The Bridge-Builders,” +“The Ship That Found Herself,” “.007,” “With the +Night Mail” and “Wireless.”</p> + +<p>One trait sharply differentiates Kipling from some +of his colleagues among the Nobel prize winners. +He is a patriot-poet but with less ardent tribute than +is found in the verse of Mistral and Björnson and +Heidenstam. Perhaps his open criticism of his country +in certain political crises has barred him from the +laureateship. His frank, democratic attitude in +later years, somewhat in contrast with earlier utterances +of imperialism, finds expression in every stanza +of “A Pilgrim’s Way.” Few poets, however, have +written such magnetic lines in urgence of “fitness,” +honor and service for country as has Kipling, in the +familiar words of “If,” “For All We Have and Are,” +“The Children’s Song,” and the refrain in the poem +in <i>Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Scoutmasters</i>—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Be fit—be fit—for honour’s sake be fit!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He is patriotic with the world knowledge of a traveled +man; two examples in proof are found in “The +Return” and “The English Flag,” with the pertinent +query—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And what should they know of England who only England know?</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In recent years it has been a “fad” in certain journals +to depreciate Kipling and to charge against him +faults of narrowness in outlook and lack of modernism. +Especially during the years of the war and its +immediate aftermath one found tones of sad, somewhat +cynical writing. In large measure this was due +to the personal trials of the time and the loss of his +son. That elegiac poem, “My Boy Jack; 1914-1918,” +will live as a heart-gripping memorial. In +his speech at the Sorbonne, November 19, 1921, he +gave evidences of spiritual recovery; he said, “One +cannot resume a broken world as easily as one can +resume a broken sentence. But before long our sons +who have spent themselves in suffering and toiling to +abolish the menace of barbarism will recover also +from the menace of moral lassitude.” With old-time +sprightliness and vigor he wrote, in the spring of 1924, +the stanzas “A Song of the French Roads,” after a +visit to France and the joyful experience of finding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>the roads to the border, that had been laid out by +Napoleon and devastated by the war, were now repaired +and open to traffic.⁠<a id="FNanchor_58_58" href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p>It was the Kipling of the earlier years of writing +who received the Nobel prize. He was forty-two +years old, one of the youngest winners. He had already +published volumes of prose and verse that +would be creditable to a writer of twice his age. +Born at Bombay, December 30, 1865, he inherited +intellectual promise from both parents. His father, +John Lockwood Kipling, an artist, was at that time +Director of the Lahore School of Industrial Art. +He was a delightful story-teller and expertly trained +in technical and artistic knowledge. He illustrated +some of his son’s earlier tales; a book by him, entitled +<i>Beast and Man in India</i>, with unusual drawings, was attributed +to Rudyard Kipling (London, 1891). Alice +MacDonald, the mother, gave to her son a keen zest +in life and a rare sense of humor. Her devotion has +had many lines of commemoration, notably in such a +poem as “Mother O’ Mine.”</p> + +<p>The boy was named Joseph Rudyard but he seldom +used the first name. The second, in memory of a lake +in England where his father and mother had met, is +so arresting and unique that it has been called one of +the causes of his first appeal to the curious public. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>After his early boyhood in India, leaving with him +strong impressions and love for the land, he was sent +to Southsea, Devonshire, to school and later to the +United Services College at Westward Ho. He was +homesick for his mother and found it difficult to mix +well with the English-born boys. <i>Stalky & Co.</i> is +largely autobiographical of this period. In 1880 he +returned to India, anxious to enter journalism and +know the native people, especially in the army. The +story runs that once, when Kipling was doing journalistic +work in Lahore, the Duke of Connaught visited +the place and asked the young man what he would +prefer to do in India. The reply came promptly, “I +would like, sir, to live with the army for a time, and go +to the frontier to write up Tommy Atkins.” The request +was granted and the literary results in later +years are listed in <i>Department Ditties</i>, <i>Soldiers +Three</i>, <i>Under the Deodars</i>, and many more stories in +volumes, from <i>Plain Tales from the Hills</i> to <i>Eyes of +Asia</i>.</p> + +<p>Much discussion has been rife about the truth or +exaggeration of Kipling’s pictures of India, especially +types of army men and officers’ wives. Many critics, +who have traveled in India, affirm the photographic +quality of the tales and verse but some raise the issue +of the tone—is it sincere or sardonic? Others, who +claim to have talked with certain “natives,” condemn +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>both the spirit and the characterizations. To the +charge of insincerity or disloyalty there seems to be a +firm answer in the friendly Prelude to <i>Departmental +Ditties</i>, which has a prominent place in the Inclusive +Edition of <i>Rudyard Kipling’s Verse</i>. He lays stress, +in the last stanza, upon “the jesting guise” but he +emphasizes, also, his loyalty to these people, especially +in the second stanza:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Was there aught that I did not share</div> + <div class="verse indent2">In vigil or toil or ease,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">One joy or woe that I did not know,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Dear hearts across the seas?⁠<a id="FNanchor_59_59" href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>During these years from 1882 to 1889, while he +was doing journalistic work and associating with civil +and military representatives in Lahore, Bombay, and +Mandalay, he was writing stories and verses which +appeared in the newspaper columns of India. The +first issue in book form was by A. H. Wheeler & Co. +of Allahabad, a little book in gray paper covers which +was sold at railway stations. In his own hand and +with striking illustrations, Kipling edited some of his +early tales; one such, “Wee Willie Winkie,” dedicated +to his mother, with others that formed “an illustrated +set,” found a purchaser in J. Pierpont Morgan, in recent +years at a price stated to be $17,000.⁠<a id="FNanchor_60_60" href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p> + +<p>When Kipling was twenty-five years old, with his +memory packed with scenes of adventure and characters +in India, and his pockets filled with unpublished +tales and verse, he decided to try his literary fate in +England. He traveled by way of the Pacific to California +and reached New York with hopes of editorial +encouragement because he had letters of introduction. +He was not received with cordiality; perhaps in later +years some of these editors and publishers regretted +their lost chance to launch a new genius. In London, +he attracted attention slowly but, with influence from +family and officials, he won recognition by critics and +reading-public. One of the first to appreciate Kipling’s +unique work was Andrew Lang; later he was +severe in criticism of certain faults. One of his essays +upon Kipling of the earlier <i>Tales</i> is included in <i>Essays +in Little</i> (Scribner’s, 1891). It has a prophetic note, +an emphasis of “the brilliance of colour,” the strange, +varied themes, the “perfume of the East.”</p> + +<p>The Nobel prize was given to Kipling because of +these qualities of his earlier work, as well as his more +mature, potent messages. He had, from the first, +rare ability to revivify, to secure for future generations +of readers the real and the romantic in Anglo-India +of the later nineteenth century. He preserved the +landscapes, the customs, the ideals, the intrigues, the +foibles, even the slang of the natives and the British +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>soldiers. Just as Mistral saved the language and +romances of Provence from oblivion, in his <i>Mireio</i> +and other poems; just as Björnson recorded the almost +forgotten sagas of Norway and blended these with +modern, peasant life; so Kipling made literary use of +this unfamiliar material of India. His idealism converted +the ordinary, often petty and rough aspects +of life, into stories and verses of undying flavor, +like “The Phantom Rickshaw,” <i>Soldiers Three</i>, +“Drums of the Fore and Aft,” “On the City Wall,” +“M’Andrew’s Hymn,” “Danny Deever,” “Mandalay,” +and “The Lover’s Litany.” Here are recorded days +of adventure and danger, nights of memory and longing. +In 1902, more than ten years after he left +India, he wrote one of his most appealing poems, +“The Broken Men,” the exiles from England with +their pluck and their pathos, which grips the sympathies +like those tales of O. Henry about the American +self-imposed “exiles” in Central America.</p> + +<p>The later visit that Kipling made to the United +States cheered his heart, in contrast to the earlier reception. +He had met Caroline Balestier, sister of +Wolcott Balestier, a young man with whom Kipling +became intimate in London and with whom he collaborated +in the novel, <i>The Naulahka</i>. Their home +was in Brattleboro, Vermont. In 1892 Miss Balestier +was married to Kipling in All Soul’s Church, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>Portland Place, London. They came to Vermont to +live for a few years in the unique house, which Kipling +built for his bride overlooking Brattleboro. Sir +Arthur Conan Doyle accredits him with “chivalrous +devotion” to his wife, which caused him to come to +America lest she might miss her home and friends.⁠<a id="FNanchor_61_61" href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> +Before coming to America they took a journey “round +the world,” or a segment of it. The death of Wolcott +Balestier was a deep grief to his friend and a loss to +American literature. In dedicatory elegy (<i>Barrack-Room +Ballads</i>) Kipling wrote the lines of noble characterization:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">E’en as he trod that day to God so walked he from his birth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_62_62" href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>For the little daughter, who died at an early age, +Kipling wrote his first <i>Jungle Book</i>. In this American +home he wrote, also, many of the poems collected +in <i>The Seven Seas</i> and the short stories, <i>Many Inventions</i>. +In the latter book were the daring pictures of +life like “The Disturber of Traffic,” the haunting +tale of “The Lost Legion,” and the tragic “Love o’ +Women.” The inspiration of Mrs. Kipling, her +perfect appreciation of her husband’s gifts and moods, +and her gracious influence have been attested by him +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>in many tender words, as well as in the more impersonal +tributes to womanhood of brains and heart, +which one finds expressed in <i>From Sea to Sea</i> or +“His Chance in Life.” The world will never forget +the persistent story that Mrs. Kipling saved, from +the wastebasket, that grand hymn of all time, “The +Recessional.” In some of his tales he antagonized +Americans, notably in <i>The Light That Failed</i> and +“An Habitation Enforced” in <i>Actions and Reactions</i>; +as compensation one recalls “An Error of the Fourth +Dimension” from <i>Plain Tales</i>, the story of Wilton +Sargent, American.</p> + +<p>The writing of Kipling showed advance in form +during the decade from 1890 to 1900. There was +gradual elimination of the jingoism and cynicism +which tainted some of his earlier work. In 1897 he +visited South Africa again. He recounted an actual +experience in riding on a Cape Government Railway +in his tale “.007,” among the stories in <i>The Day’s +Work</i>, published in 1898. In this same collection is +found “The Brushwood Boy,” a masterpiece of mystic +idealism which will stand beside his more poetic +allegory, “They.” The year 1899 has been regarded +sometimes as a crisis in the life of Kipling which +affected his later writing. On his arrival in New +York, in the late autumn of that year, he was attacked +by a severe case of pneumonia and was desperately ill +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>for many weeks. The press of America, England, +and the Continent awaited the bulletins with anxiety. +He recovered but some critics have affirmed that he +lost his vigor and literary power. Looking over the +dates of his poems, and recalling the books which +have appeared since this crisis, such a surmise is not +warranted. One could scarcely expect that any author +could continue to write, on a level or ascending +scale, many more books about India than he had already +written or many more poems of vital spell like +“If,” “When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted,” and +“M’Andrew’s Hymn.”</p> + +<p>He had already proved his ability to write for +children and adolescents. Few books among juveniles +surpass, in visualization and imaginative skill, +<i>The Jungle Books</i>, <i>Just So Stories</i>, and that pioneer +sea tale that has gained favor with the years, <i>Captains +Courageous</i>. In the years that followed his serious +illness, he wrote tales of clever inventiveness collected +in <i>Puck of Pook’s Hill</i>, <i>Rewards and Fairies</i>, and <i>Kim</i>. +To this period belong, also, many of the poems collected +in the volume, <i>The Five Nations</i>. Who will +say that there was decadence of literary power, any +lapse of dramatic skill, in that story of <i>Kim</i>, or Kimball +O’Hara, the orphan boy of Lahore? The +boys of to-day—and normal girls—have wholesome +“thrills” at this lad’s story, his pilgrimages over India +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>with the Tibetan lama, and his final adoption by the +regiment to which his father had belonged. Humor, +adventure, vivid photographs of places and people—all +are mingled in this tale. When it appeared in +the London edition of 1901, the father of Kipling +contributed some of the striking illustrations.</p> + +<p><i>The Five Nations</i> of this later period gave permanence +in form to such vital poems as “White +Horses,” “Our Lady of the Snows” (the beautiful ode +to Canada), “The Dykes,” “The Feet of the Young +Men,” “Boots,” “The Explorer,” and “The Recessional.” +“Buddha at Kamakura,” which first appeared +in <i>Kim</i>, should be listed in this collection. Are +there here traces of lapse in form or spontaneity +compared with the earlier, less restrained verses in +<i>Departmental Ditties</i> or <i>Barrack-Room Ballads</i>? In +<i>Traffics and Discoveries</i>, published in 1904, are found +such literary achievements as “Wireless,” “They,” +and “The Army of a Dream.” Kipling had shown +his keen observation, humor, and appreciation of +varied beauties of Nature in his volumes of travel-sketches +and letters, <i>From Sea to Sea</i> and <i>Letters of +Travel</i>. “In Sight of Monadnock” contains a brief, +fine description of that distant New Hampshire peak. +With his long experience in travel and adjustment to +diverse conditions of life, Kipling has ever been a poet +of home, national and domestic. His poem, “Sussex,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>written in 1902, has deep feeling as well as notable +lines of description and a rhythmic swing.</p> + +<p>New poets and story-writers came into prominence +with the twentieth century. Although Kipling was in +his full maturity and vigor when the Nobel prize was +awarded, with years of promising, creative work before +him, he had been so long before the public that +it became the fashion, in some brilliant, cynical groups, +to speak of him as belonging to the older generation. +His volumes attracted less attention in competition +with those of mere “modernism.” The announcement +of the Nobel prize, in 1907, aroused interest anew in +every country. In looking over the Kipling bibliographical +cards, in the Widener Library at Harvard +University, it is interesting to find records of translations +of his books into Danish, Dutch, French, German, +Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, +Spanish, Swedish. The journals took occasion to +review what he had accomplished in literature before +1907, to commend or reprove the decision of the +Swedish Academy in giving him a prize for “idealistic” +literature. Some cited his imperialistic “complex” +and quoted “The Man Who Would Be King.” +In <i>Current Literature</i> for October, 1908, are quotations +from diverse opinions: Said the <i>London Nation</i>: +“There is hardly any English writer more +closely identified with the doctrine of force or a firmer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>believer that the Deity is to be found on the side of the +big battalions.” The <i>New York World</i> declared, +“He sings of blood-lust, with a schoolboy’s disregard +of consequences.” The <i>Chicago Post</i> believed that +his idealism was “the idealization of might” but it +praised his strong, Biblical English.</p> + +<p>Comments of this kind fail to recognize the <i>two</i>, +paradoxical traits in Kipling’s nature and writings. +There is stark realism, sometimes relentless, as in “The +Courtship of Dinah Shadd,” “The Gate of a Hundred +Sorrows,” “My Son’s Wife,” or poems like “The Galley-Slave,” +“Danny Deever,” and “Kitchener’s +School.” Close beside this realism, penetrating and +often sordid, sounds a note of idealism, a promise of +“a happy issue out of all troubles,” a vision that +comes to an idealist. Recall that in <i>The Day’s Work</i>, +there is the tense, realistic tale of “The Devil and the +Deep Sea,” and, within a few pages, the idyll of “The +Brushwood Boy.”</p> + +<p>Since the Nobel prize was received, Kipling has +written with less frequency and more unevenness of +form. Some of the prose and verse reflects the war, +like “Fringes of the Fleet,” “Sea Warfare,” “France,” +and the “History of the Irish Guards.” Not soon +forgotten will be that tribute to Roosevelt, tender +and virile, “Great-Heart” (1919). In the collected +poems, <i>The Years Between</i>, there are challenging war +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>poems, “For All We Have and Are,” an appeal to +England, and “The Choice, or The American Spirit +Speaks,” for the United States. The elegy to “Lord +Roberts,” less militant in tone, is true poetry in emotion +and measure. Some stanzas are touched by irony, +and have the sermonic quality which is characteristic—“The +Sons of Martha,” “En-Dor” and “Russia to the +Pacifists.” The juvenile of 1923, <i>Land and Sea Tales +for Boys and Girls</i> (or <i>for Scouts and Scoutmasters</i>) +is uneven in quality but it has two dramatic sketches. +<i>Eyes of Asia</i>, portraits of Europeans as seen by Oriental +eyes, is more comparable to mediocre pages in +<i>Actions and Reactions</i> than it is to the more vital +stories in <i>Plain Tales</i> and <i>The Day’s Work</i>. “Fumes +of the Heart” is the best of these later tales.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kipling is reaping honors in educational and +civic life. His reserve, which is sometimes rated as +coldness, keeps him far from the limelight of publicity. +He cannot be persuaded to “come to America” as +lecturer or reader, in the train of many of his compatriots +of far less worth or fame. In his Sussex +home, with family and a few friends about him, he is +a delightful <i>raconteur</i> or conversationalist upon topics +of world-wide politics. He is more amused than +angered at some of the petty criticisms upon his writing, +like the recent attack upon “Mandalay” for its +anachronisms in geography, not unlike the charges +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>against Shakespeare in <i>The Tempest</i> and <i>The Winter’s +Tale</i>. Arnold Bennett, in <i>Books and Persons</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_63_63" href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> +has some comments upon Kipling’s flaws in <i>Actions +and Reactions</i> and his “prejudices and clayey ideals,” +but he ends with tribute to him as a painstaking +artist, devoted to his craft.</p> + +<p>Philip Guedalla, brilliant journalist and ironist, in +his essays, <i>A Gallery</i>, under caption of “Mandalay,” +says “much in little” about the “remoteness and antiquity” +of Kipling; he finds him so “antiquated” that +the “Dinosaurus” might give him “points in modernity.” +Despite such witty extravagances, however, +the critic admits that Kipling “has sharpened the English +language to a knife-edge and with it has cut +brilliant patterns on the surface of our prose literature.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_64_64" href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> +In both his prose and poetry he has +“sharpened the English language to a knife-edge.” +His verses may seem “antiquated” to the reader whose +exclusive tastes welcome only “new poetry” and sneer +at “lilting rhymes” and conventional meters. To +broader minds, however, there is appreciation of the +vibrant messages of spiritual courage, the bold and +graphic excerpts from real life, in both the verse and +the fiction of Kipling at his best.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span></p> + +<p>One of the honors that came to this writer recently +was an invitation to give the Rectorial Address at St. +Andrews University, in 1923. This has been published +in book form as <i>Independence</i>, similar in format +to that of Barrie’s address, on a kindred occasion, entitled +<i>Courage</i>. Mr. Kipling urges here the fundamental +duty of developing one’s individuality: +“After all,” he says, “yourself is the only person you +can by no possibility get away from in this life, and +maybe, in another. It is worth a little pains and +money to do good to him.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_65_65" href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p>His idealism is not that of mere sentiment, much +less of sentimentality. It is the idealism of work, of +action, of responsibility. It is the idealism even in +the midst of misjudgments, of carrying “The White +Man’s Burden,” of training youth towards clean, productive +manhood. One grants that some of his writings, +both prose and verse, might be eliminated from +collections and memory, with an increase in his literary +rank. He is uneven and was prone, in his earlier days, +to mistake coarseness for vigor, yet he has been able +to make his readers both <i>listen</i> and <i>see</i>. Perhaps he +has not maintained the almost unanimous favoritism +among college youths that he had two decades ago—there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>have been competitors with “college stories” of +rank realism—but it may be questioned if any author +of our day is more often quoted among both educated +and unlettered adults. Mr. Kipling has never been +tempted to lower his standards for commercial ends; +with fearless truth, he has spoken messages of uprightness +and service. “A Song of the English” is national, +perhaps imperialistic, but it has, like scores of +his other stanzas, a catholic message to Christian nations +everywhere:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Keep ye the Law—be swift in all obedience—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Make ye sure to each his own</div> + <div class="verse indent4">That he reap where he hath sown;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord!⁠<a id="FNanchor_66_66" href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55_55" href="#FNanchor_55_55" class="label">[55]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1907.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56_56" href="#FNanchor_56_56" class="label">[56]</a> <i>World’s Work</i>, February, 1908.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57_57" href="#FNanchor_57_57" class="label">[57]</a> <i>Heretics</i> by Gilbert K. Chesterton, London and New York, 1915, +1919. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58_58" href="#FNanchor_58_58" class="label">[58]</a> <i>Literary Digest</i>, July 5, 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59_59" href="#FNanchor_59_59" class="label">[59]</a> <i>Rudyard Kipling’s Verse</i>: Inclusive Edition, Garden City, N. Y., +1924, p. 3. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60_60" href="#FNanchor_60_60" class="label">[60]</a> <i>Bookman</i>, 25: 561.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61_61" href="#FNanchor_61_61" class="label">[61]</a> <i>Memories and Adventures</i> by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Boston, +1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62_62" href="#FNanchor_62_62" class="label">[62]</a> By permission of Mr. Kipling.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63_63" href="#FNanchor_63_63" class="label">[63]</a> George H. Doran, New York, 1917.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64_64" href="#FNanchor_64_64" class="label">[64]</a> <i>A Gallery</i> by Philip Guedalla, New York, 1924. By permission +of G. P. Putnam’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65_65" href="#FNanchor_65_65" class="label">[65]</a> <i>Independence</i>: Rectorial Address at St. Andrews by Rudyard +Kipling, New York, 1924. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, +Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66_66" href="#FNanchor_66_66" class="label">[66]</a> <i>Rudyard Kipling’s Verse</i>: Inclusive Edition, Garden City, N. Y., +1924. By permission of Mr. Kipling and Doubleday, Page & Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII + <br> + SELMA LAGERLÖF—SWEDISH REALIST AND + IDEALIST + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1909 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Lagerlöf, Selma, born 1858: “because of the noble idealism, +the wealth of fancy and the spiritual quality that characterize +her works.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_67_67" href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_p104" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p104.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of The American-Scandinavian Foundation</i> + </blockquote> + <p>SELMA LAGERLÖF</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“I declare it to be my express desire that in the +awarding of the prizes no consideration whatever be +paid to the nationality of the candidates, that is to +say, that the most deserving be awarded the prize, +whether of Scandinavian origin or not.” These +words from the will of Alfred Nobel had been faithfully +obeyed during the first eight years of the awards +in literature. Only once had the prize been given to +a Scandinavian, to Björnson, the Norwegian, in 1903. +When the announcement came that the winner for +1909 was the Swedish writer, Selma Lagerlöf, the +most severe critics of the Nobel Foundation Committee +in former years were either commendatory or +silently acquiescent. Here was an author who richly +deserved the prize, for she was already known +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>throughout Europe and America for her unique fiction, +in which photographic realism was always blended +with a dominant note of idealism. The juvenile book +which combined geography, fancy, humor, and fascination +for old and young, <i>The Wonderful Adventures +of Nils</i>, and other books had followed the strange tale +of folklore and character study, <i>The Story of Gösta +Berling</i>; these writings were outstanding evidences of +her literary gifts. It was an honor to womanhood +everywhere that the Nobel prize was given to Selma +Lagerlöf, first of the countrymen of Nobel to be thus +immortalized in literature. In her years of teaching +and her later messages from the press, she had shown +her sincere purpose “to benefit mankind.”</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note that the family name of this +woman means “laurel leaf,” a symbol of her fame. +In <i>Mårbacka</i>, one of her later books to be translated +into English, the reader finds detached photographs +of the home and environment of this author’s girlhood. +Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard, who has been +so successful as translator of Miss Lagerlöf’s books, +knows perfectly the languages of both Sweden and +England; she is a friend of the author, with kinship in +her traditions and spirit, and thus has sustained that +indefinable but pervading “atmosphere” which characterizes +all of Miss Lagerlöf’s fiction. The setting +of <i>Mårbacka</i> is alive with elements of Nature and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>humanity, with folklore and “wonderful tales of old +Varmland” which became the basis for many of her +later books. The spacious manor house, where Selma +Lagerlöf was born sixty-seven years ago, becomes familiar +to readers of this autobiography. The nursery +chairs, with individual names and portraits of Johan, +Anna, and little Selma Ottiliana Louisa, were treasured +heirlooms; the beds that “parted company,” perhaps, +in the night and the old owl in the lumber-loft above +the bedroom, contributed infantile “thrills” and +memories.</p> + +<p>A gay-hearted, courageous, popular man was her +father, Lieutenant Lagerlöf, retired from the army +but entertaining former associates in his home and recounting, +for his daughter’s education, tales of earlier +history of Sweden and his family. The germ-idea of +Gösta Berling, hero of her first romance, came after +a reminiscence that her father had told her one morning +after breakfast, his memory of “the most fascinating +of men,” one who could sing, write poetry, +dance so that all feet moved in unison, and could bend +everyone’s will to his own mood—and yet one who +lacked certain qualities of manly strength. The +mother of Selma Lagerlöf came from two generations +of ministers; she was quiet, practical, intuitive, a fine +administrator of her large household and frequent +guests. Aunt Lovisa gave a touch of romance to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>family circle by a sad chapter in her past that is recounted +in “The Bridal Crown,” the tragic result (according +to legend) of the substitution of whortleberry +for myrtle in the wreath for the bride’s hair. The +nurse, Back-Kaisa, large and stern yet devoted to the +family, was another interesting character at Mårbacka; +from the old housekeeper and the grandmother the +children learned stories, sagas, and bits of family +histories.</p> + +<p>When Selma Lagerlöf was three and a half years +old, after bathing in a fresh-water pond with her father, +she developed a form of infantile paralysis. +Months of inactivity followed; some lasting results +of this disease have been handicaps of the author +throughout her life. With humor and realistic portrayal +of a child’s point of view of this period, she +tells in <i>Mårbacka</i>, the chapter “Grand Company,” +how she increased in social importance in the family, +having exclusive attention of the grim nurse, and +dainties to eat in place of the usual food, much to the +jealous disgust of her brother and sister. A sojourn +at Stromstead by the sea brought new vigor and recovery +of motion to the little girl; with amazement to +herself and her family she walked to investigate a +brilliant, stuffed “bird of paradise.” The sprightly +zest in living, which characterizes the author’s personality, +is reflected in all her books. Animals as pets, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>poultry of the farmyard, and birds and flowers are +vital factors in her earlier and later tales.</p> + +<p>Among important influences of her childhood was +the singing of Bellman Ballads, with their humor, +pathos, and haunting music. One day when Miss +Lagerlöf had won a place among twenty-five chosen +candidates at Teachers’ College in Stockholm, and had +been listening to a lecture about Bellman and Runeberg +and their ballads, she had her “flash of inspiration.” +She determined to tell stories about her own +Varmland; she would become narrator of her “Cavaliers” +and would incorporate into her tales the +legends, folklore and real characters of the home district. +She had cherished ambitions to write verse and +even plays, from the days when, as a young girl, she +visited her uncle in Stockholm and went to the theatre +with the old housekeeper, becoming impressed by +peasant plays and scenes from Nosselt’s <i>History</i>. +She had lain awake at night, composing rhymes and +neglecting the sleep which would have fitted her for +the tasks of the next day in “composition and arithmetic.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_68_68" href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p> + +<p>After graduation she taught at Landskrona, in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>province of Skåne, always hoping to find time to write, +always meeting disappointments because of the demands +of the classroom, often telling orally some of +her tales to her pupils after school hours, always returning +to her old home, Mårbacka, in vacations and +gaining new impetus for her literary aspirations. +Her first chapter of <i>The Story of Gösta Berling</i> was +composed on a Christmas holiday evening when she, +with members of her family, was returning from a +party at a distant neighbor’s house. A blizzard was +raging and she sat in the sleigh, covered with furs, +while the old horse, urged by the aged coachman, tried +to plough through the drifts, in defiance of the wild +winds. In her mind was formulated that chapter of +the Christmas night at the smithy, which is an arresting +episode in the complete novel. She made first +a metrical version; then she tried it in dramatic form +and, finally, wrote it as a short story. Later she +wrote other episodes—that of the flood at Ekeby and +another of the ball. In 1890, at the urgence of her +sister, she sent some of these episodic stories to a +prize competition, offered by the magazine, <i>Idun</i>, for +the best novelette of one hundred pages. A few +weeks later the journal announced that some of the +manuscripts were “so confusedly written that they +could not be considered for the prize”; Miss Lagerlöf +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>was sure that hers was among this rejected class. +Then came a telegram, signed by three classmates, +with the words, “Hearty Congratulations.”</p> + +<p>The editor offered to publish the novel, in expanded +form, if Miss Lagerlöf could have it ready in a short +time. Again, she was in despair when a friend, +Baroness Aldersparre, arranged financial matters so +that the teacher could be given a year’s leave of absence—and +“the miracle happened.” When she had +completed this initial story, combining Swedish legend, +history of the days of the Cavaliers and the pensioners +and the old forges, with humor and delicate idealism, +she was dissatisfied because it seemed to her “wild and +disjointed.” There are passages where the sentences +are detached, places where the links in her chain +of plot are weak. In structure she has gained skill, +as is evident by a comparison of her earlier fiction +with such masterworks as the first part of <i>Jerusalem</i> +and <i>The Emperor of Portugallia</i>. With this improved +technic, she has kept her spontaneity, her vital +realism and intuition, her spiritual insight. After the +publication of one of her novels, the <i>London Times</i> +said, with true emphasis upon her unusual combination +of qualities: “She is an idealist pure and simple in +a world given over to realism, yet such is the perfection +of her style and the witchery of her fancy that +a generation of realists worship her.” An optimism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>which defies apparent failures, akin to that of Browning, +brings about the redemption of her characters +from Gösta Berling, drunken poet-preacher and fascinating +vagabond, and flighty Marianne Sinclair to +Lilliecrona, the restless violinist, and Glory Golden +Sunnycastle, heroine of <i>The Emperor of Portugallia</i>.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard said, in a recent +interview with the writer of this book, that Miss +Lagerlöf, like her translator, considers this story of +Jan, who calls himself “The Emperor of Portugallia,” +and his daughter, Glory, as her best work in fiction. +Thousands of readers will echo the preference. To +the incisive, ruthless realism in this tale she has added +sympathy that grips the heart, poetic setting and sagas, +and a message that is more impressive because it is +dramatic rather than sermonic. The threads of this +story are seldom tangled; the pattern stands out with +distinctness and artistry.</p> + +<p><i>Invisible Links</i>, a collection of short stories, was +published in 1894, with peasants, fisherfolk, children, +and animals all “linked” in interrelations of spirit; +Miss Lagerlöf then received a yearly stipend for her +services to literature, through the friendly interest of +the Swedish Academy and King Oscar and his son, +Prince Eugen. With a friend she went to Italy and +Sicily, gaining impressions that bore harvest in +<i>Miracles of Antichrist</i>, issued in 1897 and translated +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>into English two years later by Pauline Bancroft Flach, +who had done the same service for <i>The Story of Gösta +Berling</i> and <i>Invisible Links</i>. Mingling traditions and +poetry of old Sicily with reactions to modern socialism +and its effects upon established religion, Miss Lagerlöf +wrote with deep fervor and colorful imagination. +The slight plot is evolved about the ruse of the Englishwoman +who coveted an image of Christ as a child, +in a church in Rome, and substituted an image, seemingly +the same but with the legend upon the crown, +“My Kingdom is only of this World.” By a miracle, +a few weeks later, the false image is cast down and +the true Christchild stands in the doorway. The +Antichrist is taken away to Sicily where miracles of +helpfulness are recorded by its agnostic followers. +Miss Lagerlöf seeks to preach, through the words of +the Pope to Father Gondo, the ideal of unity between +Christianity and antichristianity: “You could take +the great popular movement in your arms, while it is +still lying like a child in its swaddling clothes, and +you could bear it to Jesus’ feet; and Antichrist would +see that he is nothing but an imitation of Christ, and +would acknowledge him his Lord and Master.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_69_69" href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p><i>From a Swedish Homestead</i>, which was published in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>1899, contains the strong, mystical novelette, “The +Story of a Country House.” A student at Upsala +University loses his reason as a result of seeing his +flock of sheep frozen to death in a storm when, by +his forethought, the tragedy might have been averted. +Known as “The Goat,” he wanders about the countryside, +selling toys and trinkets, until his redemption and +sanity are achieved through his love for a girl of noble +character. Among the other short tales in this same +volume is “Santa Catarina of Siena,” a reflection of the +Italian trip, and “The Emperor’s Money Chest,” +which is allegorical yet photographic of Belgium in +an industrial crisis.</p> + +<p>Two other books preceded the award of the Nobel +prize—<i>Jerusalem</i> and <i>The Wonderful Adventures of +Nils</i>, with its sequel. In 1899, the Swedish government +gave to Miss Lagerlöf a commission to go to +Palestine. She was to report, on her return, upon conditions +which she might discover there in the Swedish +colony which had migrated from Nås, a parish of Dalecarlia, +a few years previously. Urged by promoters +of missionary enterprise, among them Mrs. Edward +Gordon of Chicago, scores of peasants and householders +had sold their homesteads and left their +families to join this colony in the Holy Land. Rumors +had come to Sweden of direful conditions there—of +disease and hunger, of depleted morale and bickerings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>among colonists and missionaries. “Jerusalem +kills!” became a common phrase of the day. Miss +Lagerlöf undertook investigation and made a report +on existent evils and exaggerated rumors. She accomplished +a far more important work for literature than +this report. She gathered material for one of her +most emotional, graphic books, <i>Jerusalem</i>. Against +the background of facts, both in Dalecarlia and Palestine, +she wove a story of intense feeling, with folklore, +psychological insight, and characterization of a +fine type. The portrayals of the Ingmarsson family +and the women, Brita, Karin, and Gertrude, whose +fates were interlinked with those of the later generation +of the ancestral family of Dalecarlia, are vivid.</p> + +<p>Humor relieves the tragic intensity of this book, so +well rendered into English by Mrs. Howard who has, +says Mr. Henry Goddard Leach in the Introduction, +been able “to reproduce the original in essence as well +as verisimilitude.” An example of the descriptive style +of this story of Swedish life under religious tension is +found in the opening sentences of the chapter, “The Departure +of the Pilgrims” of Part I.⁠<a id="FNanchor_70_70" href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> “One beautiful +morning in July, a long train of cars and wagons set +out from the Ingmar Farm. The Hellgumists had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>at last completed their arrangements, and were now +leaving for Jerusalem—the first stage of the journey +being the long drive to the railway station.</p> + +<p>“The procession, in moving towards the village, +had to pass a wretched hovel which was called +Mucklemire. The people who lived there were a +disreputable lot—the kind of scum of the earth which +must have sprung into being when our Lord’s eyes +were turned, or when he had been too busy elsewhere.</p> + +<p>“There was a whole horde of dirty, ragged youngsters +on the place, who were in the habit of running +loose all day, shrieking after passing vehicles, and +calling the occupants bad names; there was an old crone +who usually sat by the roadside, tipsy; and there were +a husband and wife who were always quarrelling and +fighting, and who had never been known to do any +honest work. No one could say whether they begged +more than they stole, or stole more than they begged.</p> + +<p>“When the Jerusalem-farers came alongside this +wretched hovel, which was about as tumbledown as a +place can become when wind and storm have, for +many years, been allowed to work havoc, they saw +the old crone standing erect and sober at the roadside, +on the same spot where she usually sat in a drunken +stupor ... and with her were four of the children. +All five were now washed and combed, and as decently +dressed as it was possible for them to be....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p> + +<p>“All the Jerusalem-farers suddenly burst into tears, +the grown-ups crying softly, while the children broke +into loud sobs and wails.... When they had all +passed by, Beggar Lina also began to weep.</p> + +<p>“‘Those people are going to Heaven to meet Jesus,’ +she told the children. ‘All those people are going to +Heaven, but we are left standing by the wayside.’”</p> + +<p>Another literary outcome of the visit of Miss +Lagerlöf to Palestine was a renewed interest in legends +about Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Always deeply +religious, with an unusual ability to blend worship with +tradition and never lose the distinctive flavor of each +element, she wrote the tales that were collected as +<i>Christ Legends</i>, translated by Mrs. Howard in 1908. +Here are new, impressive versions of such old myths +as “The Wise Men’s Well,” “Saint Veronica’s Kerchief,” +and “Robin Redbreast.”</p> + +<p>The Swedish school authorities wished for a good +geography which should be popular with the children +and satisfy the teachers. The National Teachers’ +Association appealed to Miss Lagerlöf for such a book +and the results were <i>The Wonderful Adventures of +Nils</i> and <i>Further Adventures of Nils</i>, appearing in +1906 and 1907. These books, so widely read in +schools and homes in every civilized country to-day, +are worthy a place on the shelves beside <i>Alice in +Wonderland</i> of the past and <i>Doctor Doolittle</i> of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>present type of juveniles. The boy, Nils Holgersson, +and his “goosey-gander,” with companions on the earth +and in the air, appeal to the imagination of all ages, +while the information about Sweden’s outlines and +landmarks is both accurate and entertaining.</p> + +<p>Such had been the literary output of Miss Lagerlöf +before she was chosen for the Nobel winner of 1909. +Already she had been given a gold medal for her work +by the Swedish Academy and the degree of LL.D. by +the University of Upsala. Five years after the award +she was elected to membership in the Swedish Academy, +“the eighteen immortals”—the first woman to be +thus honored. When the prize was given to her, with +a grand fête at Stockholm, she was the guest of honor +at a banquet at the Grand Hotel, given by King +Gustav V. Her acceptance was in the form of a +unique speech, a story, briefly told, of her summons to +her father to aid her in saying the right words, this +father who, long dead, had been her inspiration for +her first work in literature and her spiritual guide in +many crises. Wistful beauty and delicate humor +were blended in the closing words:⁠<a id="FNanchor_71_71" href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> “Father sits and +ponders a while; then he wipes away the tears of joy, +shakes himself, and strikes his fist on the arm of the +chair. ‘I don’t care to sit here any longer and muse +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>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.’</p> + +<p>“Your Royal Highness—Ladies and Gentlemen—since +I got no better answer to all my queries, it only +remains for me to ask you to join me in a toast of +gratitude, which I have the honour to propose to the +Swedish Academy.”</p> + +<p>Miss Lagerlöf was fifty-one years old when this +honor came to her; in the years since then she has +exemplified, in spoken and written words, “the noble +idealism, the wealth of imagination, the soulful quality +of her style.” Her speech, in 1911, when the International +Suffrage Congress was held in Stockholm, +was widely read and translated. In this, +as in so many of her stories, she stressed the +idea of home and its influence throughout every +avenue of betterment in the world. This year +marked, also, the publication of <i>Lilliecrona’s Home</i>, +translated in English three years later by Anna Barwell. +The setting was Varmland and the hero’s home, +Lövdalla, closely resembles the home of the author, +Mårbacka. This is, perhaps, the most poetic and mystical +of all her stories. The violinist who found in +“music and music alone his home, his place of rest,” is +a haunting character, sharing many traits with Gösta +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>Berling. His life-passage is turbulent, often dramatic, +sometimes melancholy, ending in a happy romance +for him and Maia Lisa, the pastor’s daughter. There +are scenes of emotional vigor, like “The Bride’s +Dance” and “The Accusation.” These are comparable +to the more familiar chapters in <i>The Story of +Gösta Berling</i>, like that where the autocratic Mistress +of Ekeby is driven forth by her pensioners because they +discover that she has vowed a soul each year to the +devil (in expiation for her secret sin) or the redemptive +power of Countess Elizabeth in reclaiming Gösta’s +manhood. Beautiful descriptions of apple orchards in +bloom are found in the later book, interwoven with +romantic legends like the excitement for the pastor’s +daughter when young Lilliecrona comes forward in her +dream and offers her water “after the magic pancake,” +a sure prophecy that he will be her husband.</p> + +<p>Against the same background of her girlhood home +is placed the later, strong story of <i>The Emperor of +Portugallia</i>. This is less episodic and more unified +than some of her other fiction. Jan, the dull, plodding +man with no zest in life until he holds in his arms his +little daughter, whom he calls Glory Goldie Sunnycastle, +is a vital character; we share his pride in the +beauty and charm of Glory, his faith in her even when +rumors would smirch her moral character, not without +basis, as she goes out into the world to save the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>home for Jan and his wife, Katrina, his final act of +self-sacrifice when, with clouded mind but spiritual +vision, he would save her from the demons of “Pride +and Hardness, Lust and Vice.” This story has been +well called in France “an epic of fatherhood—a Swedish +<i>Père Goriot</i>.”</p> + +<p>In 1922 appeared in the United States <i>The Outcast</i>, +the English version of <i>Bannlyst</i>, as its title was +in Swedish when it was published in 1918. The +World War entered as a motif in the latter part of the +story, sometimes with strained effects. As a work of +artistic fiction it seems inferior to <i>The Story of Gösta +Berling</i> or <i>The Emperor of Portugallia</i>. It has +virility however, and much intensity of feeling. Although +she lived in a neutral country Miss Lagerlöf +was deeply stirred by the war and the terrible sacrifices +of life. She resented all evidences of brutal +humanity. The sacredness of human life forms her +keynote in <i>The Outcast</i>. Sven Elversson, who had +lived through a fearful experience upon an Arctic expedition +and had been accused of eating human flesh +in an hour of imminent famine, returns to his mother +and his home to find himself denounced by the villagers +and even by the minister. To save his mother +from further torture of spirit, after he has tried in +vain to overcome the prejudice of the people by his +charity and Christlike deeds, he goes away to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>woods of the Far North. Here he wanders, and is +called “The Outcast,” until he meets the beautiful wife +of the bigoted minister who had preached against Sven, +the man who, in unfounded jealousy, had cast off his +wife. The love scenes in this book are elemental in +their simplicity, yet have poetic touches. Then comes +the Battle of Jutland and the frightful scenes when +the bodies of the dead are washed upon the shores +of his home town. Sven returns and organizes a +group of men to bury the dead; in the pocket of one +of the victims is found a letter which exonerates Sven +from the false charge of cannibalism. It is a daring, +grotesque tale in parts, with local color and superstition +interwoven with good character-drawing and a +dominant message of faith.</p> + +<p>An early folk story which has been recently translated +by Arthur G. Chater, is entitled <i>The Treasure</i>. +It is slight in volume and literary value compared with +such major books as <i>Jerusalem</i> and <i>The Emperor of +Portugallia</i>. It has features of the spectacular with +restrained dramatic power. It lends itself to scenario +effects because of the pictorial background and the +brilliant contrasts in characters and sentiments. In +Sweden of the sixteenth century, in the days of Frederick +II of Denmark (who was also ruler of Sweden), +occurred this legendary tale. It mingles the sea, with +its galleys and its wild storms, with the parsonage and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>the hidden treasure chest which was looted. All the +family had been murdered by these mysterious robbers +except a foster child, Elsalill. The supernatural element +is used with fine effects; this girl is haunted by +the ghost and messages from her foster sister who +was killed. Elsalill is in anguish of spirit because she +loves the bold, persuasive, and richly apparelled Sir +Archer, although she finds that he is one of the robber-murderers. +How her body becomes his shield from +the sheriff, even to her death and his escape, forms the +romantic climax of this tale.</p> + +<p>Miss Lagerlöf’s early ambition to become a dramatist +has never wholly died; she has written a few plays +that have been staged with success in Sweden, Denmark, +and Norway. Among these has been a dramatization +of <i>The Girl from the Marshcroft</i>; this story +has been shown as a film in many places in America +as well as abroad. The setting in rural picturesqueness, +with tragic and romantic notes mingled, affords +dramatic opportunities. Mrs. Howard says that <i>The +Story of Gösta Berling</i> has been shown at the cinema +in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. “Will Miss +Lagerlöf ever come to the United States?” we ask her +friend and translator. The reply is a probable negative. +She is deeply interested in America and reads +many books by our authors, especially those of mystical +or informing trend. She had an uncle who lived in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>Seattle and, on the walls of her dining-room, are found +landscapes of Western America. She is not very +strong, although never lacking in energy of mind and +purpose. The freedom and vivacity of American +women impress her as she receives many visitors, either +at her summer home at Mårbacka or in the winter at +Falun, close to the scenes of the first part of <i>Jerusalem</i>. +She reads six languages with ease and is conversant +with the major interests of every country. She has a +keen humor and rare graciousness.</p> + +<p>Miss Lagerlöf is intensely racial and national in +her literary reflections; she is international in her sympathies +and insight into problems of life. Love of +home is one of the primal qualities of her personality +and writing. She has applied her creed of “keeping +the imagination young” by never losing her own delight +in sagas, hero tales, and “belief in fairies” that +will enhearten and redeem humanity. Edwin Björkman, +in <i>Voices of Tomorrow</i>, has stressed her ability +and courage “to dream and feel and aspire.” Her +literary work varies in excellence; sometimes it is weak +in structure and ineffective in artistry; in other and +major portions she has clothed the commonplace incidents +of life with original, new vitality and revealed +their meanings with imaginative beauty. Her characters +and settings are racial but her impulses and messages +are universal, unconfined by land or age.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67_67" href="#FNanchor_67_67" class="label">[67]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1909.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68_68" href="#FNanchor_68_68" class="label">[68]</a> <i>Selma Lagerlöf; The Woman, Her Work, Her Message</i> by Harry +E. Maule, Garden City, N. Y., 1917. By permission of Doubleday, +Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69_69" href="#FNanchor_69_69" class="label">[69]</a> <i>Miracles of Antichrist</i> by Selma Lagerlöf, translated by Pauline +Bancroft Flach, Garden City, N. Y., 1899. By permission of Doubleday, +Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70_70" href="#FNanchor_70_70" class="label">[70]</a> <i>Jerusalem</i> by Selma Lagerlöf, translated by Velma Swanston +Howard, Garden City, N. Y., 1916. By permission of Doubleday, +Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71_71" href="#FNanchor_71_71" class="label">[71]</a> <i>Selma Lagerlöf: The Woman, Her Work, Her Message</i> by Harry +E. Maule, Garden City, N. Y., 1917. By permission of Doubleday, +Page & Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII + <br> + PAUL HEYSE (1910)—GERHART HAUPTMANN + (1912) + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1910 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Heyse, Paul, born 1830, died April 2, 1914: “as a mark of +esteem of an artistry, finished and marked by an ideal conception, +which he has shown during a long and significant activity +as lyric dramatist, and as an author of romances and famous +short stories.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_72_72" href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Two German scholars had been winners of the +Nobel prize in literature in 1904 and 1908—Theodor +Mommsen and Rudolf Eucken. Two more distinguished +authors with international reputations were +added in 1910 and 1912, making four awards to German +literature within eight years. Paul Heyse, the +versatile author of the year 1910 has been difficult to +classify, because he is dramatist, poet, novelist, and +writer of a form of short story known as the <i>Novelle</i>. +More than one hundred and fifty of these tales are +accredited to him, in addition to prodigious industry in +other literary forms. The <i>Novelle</i> bears some resemblance +to the short stories of Hoffmann, Tieck, Alfred +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>de Musset, and the American masters of this type, +Poe, Hawthorne, and O. Henry. In more definite +method than some of these <i>conteurs</i>, Heyse developed +a principle which he applied and explained, in part, +in his Introduction to his <i>Deutscher Novellenschatz</i>; +he stresses the fact that the essential foundation of +this form is “what children call the story” but he adds, +“A strong silhouette should not be lacking.” The +“silhouette will be a brief summary of conditions which +underlie the focal scene or incident.” Thus Heyse became +creator, or developer, of this form of fiction, +with a wide range of incidents and characters, in which +keen observation of life and faithful recital were +blended with idealism of a distinctive motive—that +of “glorifying nature,” human and inanimate.</p> + +<p>Johann Ludwig Paul Heyse was born in Berlin, +March 15, 1830; he was eighty years old when the +Nobel honor was received. His father, Karl Ludwig +Heyse, with a firm, Teutonic nature, was a famous +philologist and professor at the University of Berlin. +His mother came from a Jewish family of wealth and +social rank. In his <i>Memoirs</i>, her son recalls her as +“passionate and imaginative”; from her he inherited +his bent toward story-telling and delight in the sensuous +which mingled with the rationalistic trend of mind, +bequeathed by his father. In the home of the Heyses +gathered scholars, authors, and artists. The atmosphere +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>fostered the natural precocity of the boy, Paul. +One of his older friends was Kugler, the historian of +art, who had an inspirational influence upon the youth; +in manhood, Heyse married the gifted daughter of +this friend.</p> + +<p>At the University of Bonn, where Heyse went from +Berlin, he showed much interest in Romance languages. +He was fascinated with Spanish, especially the writings +of Cervantes and Calderon. In 1849, and again in +1852, he traveled in Italy, adding Dante, Boccaccio, +and Leopardi to his list of literary heroes. The homes +of artists were open to him and he found Italy an ideal +land of “colour and grace.” Shakespeare received his +tribute throughout his literary life. He began to write +dramas and lyric poems, tales in verse and prose with +youthful zest and marks of great promise. In 1854, +King Max of Bavaria offered to him a position at the +Court of Munich, at a salary of 1500 florins. Munich +was an environment sure to awaken his talent and +satisfy his love of beauty. Under Louis I it had been +favored with some fine buildings; an atmosphere +of culture was pervasive. Among the poets and +scholars, with whom Heyse became associated here, +were Geibel, Bodenstedt, Wilbrandt, Luogg, and +Schack, the historian. In 1868, when Louis II, successor +to King Max, insulted Geibel, the poet, and +caused him to leave the city, Heyse was depressed although +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>he stayed in Munich, living in a charming villa +there until his death in 1914.</p> + +<p>From the early years of his authorship, Heyse +showed an aristocratic culture which did not dim his +interest in fisherfolk, peasants, and rural characters. +Although family sorrows came upon him, and he suffered, +from 1880 to 1900, from attacks by the ardent +followers of Zola and Ibsen, yet he never lost his +serenity of character and his belief in individualistic +expression. “Instinct” was his guide, as he has exemplified +in scores of his tales and dramas. The +“child of nature,” or the man or woman of inherent +nobility, was incapable of any low or mean action according +to his belief. In <i>Salamander</i>, which Mr. +Georg Brandes regards as his best <i>Novelle</i> in versified +form,⁠<a id="FNanchor_73_73" href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> he expresses his creed of the vigorous life, of +allegiance to nature, in spite of failings and adverse +judgments against him by the “naturalistic school”:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I never yet of virtue or of failing</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Have been ashamed, nor proudly did adorn</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Myself of one, nor thought my sins of veiling.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Beyond all else, betwixt the nobly born</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And vulgar herd, this marks the separation,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The cowards whose hypocrisy we scorn.</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Him I call noble, who, with moderation,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Carves his own honor, and but little heeds</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His neighbors’ slander or their approbation.⁠<a id="FNanchor_74_74" href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Another character, familiar to readers of Heyse, +Toinette of <i>Kinder der Welt</i> (<i>Children of the World</i>) +speaks words of similar trend often quoted; “There is +but <i>one</i> genuine nobility; to remain true to one’s self.... +He who bears within himself the true rank, lives +and dies through his own grace, and is, therefore, +sovereign.”</p> + +<p>To Italy, Heyse turns for sensuous delights in many +of his tales. <i>L’Arrabiata</i>, probably the best known of +any of his <i>Novellen</i> by students of German in colleges +and classes, written when he was twenty-three, has an +interesting history.⁠<a id="FNanchor_75_75" href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Paul Heyse as a young man, and +his friend, Joseph Victor Scheffel, were at an inn at +Sorrento. They had been together at Capri and had +planned to hold a “literary joust,” to read to each +other, at Sorrento, some new tale or poem. Scheffel +contributed the poem, <i>Der Trumpeter von Gättingen</i>; +Heyse read <i>L’Arrabiata</i>. Piquant is this tale of the +maiden’s love for Antonio, the boatman, and her +maidenly pride and resistance to his love until the injury +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>to his arm and his plea to her, in memory of her +mother, brings about a romantic sequel. Twenty-five +years later Heyse was again at Sorrento; he +sent a greeting, in rhyme, to this friend of earlier +days and later life. He told him that he had seen +again his model, “Laurella,” on the street but she did +not recognize him; she was far removed from the +“madcap” of fifteen, the “cross-patch,” with her youthful +charm and wistful appeal. The background of this +tale, against Naples and Vesuvius, is painted with that +vivid photography which characterizes Heyse’s scenes +in drama and fiction. Unlike Balzac or Turgenieff, +he wrote few words of description but “created atmosphere” +that was alive. Striking examples are the +familiar tales, “Barbarossa,” “At the Ghost Hour” +and “The Dead Lake.”</p> + +<p>In the later <i>Novellen</i>, as well as the novels and plays +of other years, Heyse showed tendencies towards realism +and less romanticism. On the other hand, he +never lost his urge for sensuous beauty, his determination +“to follow one’s bent” (“sich gehen zu lassen”). +He would not compel himself to irksome writing; he +would yield to impulse and mood. “The real sin is +against nature” was his keynote, reiterated from the +short tale of “Reise nach dem Glück” (“Journey After +Happiness”) to the longer novels, <i>Kinder der Welt</i> +(<i>Children of the World</i>) and <i>Im Paradiese</i> (<i>In Paradise</i>). +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>In philosophy he has been called both fatalistic +and epicurean. The conflicts between restraint and +self-surrender, especially in women, are germ-ideas in +such diverse writings as <i>L’Arrabiata</i>, <i>The Sabine +Women</i> (with the heroine, Tullia) and <i>In Paradise</i>, +with the forceful character of Irene. In the dialogue, +in <i>Children of the World</i>, between Balder, the invalid-idealist +and Franzel, the socialist-printer, the author’s +convictions are unfolded. Balder declares that life is +full of enjoyment to him, in spite of outward sufferings, +because “he can experience past and future,” because he +can “conjure up” all the periods of his life and find a +totality, a completeness of enjoyment. So the young +baron in the novel, <i>In Paradise</i>, which has been +vehemently discussed for two generations, sins against +his own nature and his friend and, for a time, his +“inner harmony” is destroyed but after sufferings, +portrayed with analytical skill, harmony is restored. +The city of Munich, in its varied aspects as related +to society and the arts, forms the “chorus” and subtle +influence in this dramatic story.⁠<a id="FNanchor_76_76" href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> + +<p>Heyse has written more than sixty dramas yet too +few of them are translated adequately into English; +too often they have failed in stage presentation. +Many are historical; <i>The Sabine Women</i> is erotic and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>less consistent in development than <i>Hans Lange</i>, +<i>Hadrian Colberg</i>, and <i>Mary of Magdala</i>; the last play +has been translated by William Winter and by Lionel +Vale. The old philologist, Zipfel, in <i>Colberg</i>, may +have been modeled, in part, from Heyse’s father. +His speech, relating the story of Leonidas and the Persian +War, reaches a climax of courage and self-sacrifice, +with an application to later days of struggle between +the French and Germans. In Henning, the old servant +in <i>Hans Lange</i>, the author emphasizes his belief +in the redemptive power of nobler nature, in spite of +incentives to revenge against the young squire.</p> + +<p>There is unevenness of workmanship among the +many <i>Novellen</i>. <i>Felice</i>, the tale of the peasant girl +who “listened to reason rather than the call of passion,” +is a vital expression of the author’s creed of obedience +to “impulse of the heart.” The later tales are more +keen and realistic than the photographic, romantic +scenes laid in Italy and Southern Germany. Heyse became +more of an analyst of all kinds of humanity, with +their conflicting “impulses,” but he never acquiesced in +the scenes of squalor and moral slime that delighted +some of his contemporaries of the “naturalistic school.” +By contrast, he was an idealist with a strong vein of +poetry. One of his best stories of later period, <i>The +Last Centaur</i>, expresses his revolt against the materialistic +spirit of his age. The creature who represents +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>the age of myths and imagination is driven back into +the wood by the evil ways and heartless gibes of the +modern villages; in turn, he scorns their opposition with +“an exhalted humor.” It seems almost a modern version +of the old tale of <i>Baucis and Philemon</i>. In another +tale, <i>The Incurable</i>, the hero keeps faith in the +ideal, in spite of the “rabble in kid gloves.” <i>Die +Blinden</i> (<i>The Blind</i>) is an appealing story, with colorful +pictures of garden and ravens and flocks, and two +children, Clement and Marlene, waiting with tense +emotion for the doctors to restore their sight. The +stern father, obsessed with his idea of “duty,” is a +strong character. “Nils mit der offenen Hand” is a +fairy tale that defies adequate translation into English +but has situations of dramatic skill, notably that of +the gulls biting the rope at the execution of Nils, and +the brave deed of Stina, the princess who loves Nils.</p> + +<p>Heyse was more successful in portraying women +than men. He was long called “the favorite of +maidens.” He had insight to see fairly and to balance +well the traits of normal maidenhood—beauty, coyness, +love of prowess and adventure, ardent but concealed +love until the lover came to whom she would yield her +“maidenly pride” (“Mädschenstoltz”). There are +traces of the influence of Goethe in certain passages in +<i>Kinder der Welt</i>, and such <i>Novellen</i> as <i>The Broiderer +of Treviso</i>, <i>The Prodigal Son</i>, and <i>The Spell of Rothenburg</i>. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>In the last story, there are comments upon +art, interwoven with humor and irony as the characters +journey from Ausbach to Würzburg. Originality, +however, marks his drama and his fiction—that “ideal +conception and fine literary craftsmanship” which won +for him the Nobel inscription.</p> + +<p>Mr. Georg Brandes believes that Heyse was, primarily, +a pupil of Eichendorf, as his poetry indicates.⁠<a id="FNanchor_77_77" href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> +The poems by Heyse are less familiar than his prose, +although he wrote both epics and lyrics. “Salamander” +ranks among his best long poems; “The Fury” +and “The Fairy Child” are examples of his lyrics. +He delighted to translate—or transpose—troubadour +lays, folk songs from the Spanish and the Italian. +Like Mendelssohn, to whom he has been compared in +temperament, he lacked dynamic force but he was +sensitive, artistic, and idealistic in his basic character.</p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Gerhart Hauptmann</span> (1912)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1912 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Hauptmann, Gerhart, born 1862: “principally for his rich, +versatile, and prominent activity in the realm of the drama.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_78_78" href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>During the quarter century since the first Nobel +prize was awarded, it has happened, at intervals, that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>two representatives of the same nation but different +generations, are found on the lists in literature. Thus +Björnson and Hamsun, among Norwegian novelists, +Echegaray and Benavente in Spanish Drama, and +Heyse and Hauptmann in German literature of the +imagination, are exponents of succeeding generations +of thought and expression. Heyse stood for the older, +more poetic and romantic forms; he decreed a philosophy +of nobleness in man and contentment in life. +Gerhart Hauptmann, who received the prize only two +years later than Heyse, in 1912, was ranked by some +critics with the realists of the modern, restless type, +whose criticism of society in general was world-disturbing. +After 1900 the fame of Heyse had declined +among the younger, more progressive writers. +His award, at eighty years, revived interest in his +writings, especially the <i>Novellen</i>; translations and +articles about his personality were widely printed in +current journals.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp57" id="i_p134" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p134.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><i>From an original etching by Hermann Struck. Reproduced by permission of + the artist and courtesy of the New York Public Library</i></p> + <p>GERHART HAUPTMANN</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>One of the authors whom Heyse had censured for +his naturalism and depressing dramas had been Gerhart +Hauptmann. When the announcement was made that +the prize of 1912 was again given to a German novelist +and playwright, racial pride ran high but critics of +other countries asked, “How could idealism be perverted +in meaning so that it would apply to the author +of <i>Before Dawn</i>, <i>Lonely Lives</i>, <i>The Weavers</i> and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span><i>Michael Kramer</i>?” Unfairly, the name of Hauptmann +was linked constantly with that of Sudermann by +the most bitter malcontents with this award. Such an +attitude was biassed and unjust. That Hauptmann +has written some of the most photographic, haunting +dramas of industrial strife and social vices is true; +but it is as true that he has produced two, possibly +three, of the really poetic, symbolic plays in modern +German literature—<i>The Assumption of Hannele</i>, <i>The +Sunken Bell</i>, and <i>Parsival</i>.</p> + +<p>There are two distinctive, but not wholly contradictory, +personalities in Hauptmann as he reveals himself +to his readers. It was as author of <i>The Sunken Bell</i>, +especially, that he was chosen for the Nobel prize; it +had certain autobiographical suggestions of this conflict +between the material and the spiritual in the nature +of its author. Recognizing that he is often associated +with Sudermann, the brilliant, relentless novelist and +dramatist, it is interesting to find these two writers +well differentiated by Otto Heller in <i>Studies in Modern +German Literature</i> (Boston, 1905). He compares +the nervous, sensitive mind of Hauptmann, “possessed +of a reproductive, feminine talent,” in contrast with +the masculine personality of Sudermann, less subtle, +more virile and coarse, with broader knowledge of life +but lacking the intuitive perceptions of Hauptmann. +One may question some of these adjectives used by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>Mr. Heller, but the general contrast is well phrased, +especially as applied to the poetic dramas by Hauptmann, +like <i>The Sunken Bell</i>, <i>And Pippa Dances</i>, and +<i>Parsival</i>.</p> + +<p>Before Hauptmann conceived any of this work that +entitles him to rank among the idealists, he had +written grim tragedies, similar in trend to those by +Ibsen, Zola, Tolstoy, Max Nordau, and Arno Holz. +As realist he has been censured as weak in plots and +sometimes strained in his social tenets: there are such +defects in <i>The Beaver Coat</i>, <i>Rose Bernd</i>, and <i>The +Conflagration</i>. That he had a poetic instinct, a true +lyric quality, was acknowledged from occasional lines +in such gloomy plays as <i>Lonely Lives</i>, <i>Colleague +Crampton</i>, and <i>The Weavers</i>. Among the plays of +industrial upheaval and suffering, <i>The Weavers</i> has +tense feeling, with lines of irony and suppressed aspirations. +It was dedicated to Robert Hauptmann, +father of the author, in affectionate words that express +the source of its inspiration and the allegiance of +Gerhart Hauptmann to his forefathers: “You, dear +father, know what feelings lead me to dedicate this +work to you, and I am not called upon to analyze them +here. Your stories of my grandfather, who in his +young days sat at the loom, a poor weaver like those +here depicted, contained the germ of my drama. +Whether it possesses the vigor of life or is rotten +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>at the core, it is the best ‘so poor a man as Hamlet is,’ +can offer.”</p> + +<p>While this grandfather had been a poor weaver, he +met with better fortunes in later life, and the father +of Gerhart Hauptmann was owner of three hotels. +The boy was born at Salzbrunn, a seaside town in +Silesia, in 1862; thus he was thirty-two years younger +than Heyse—a full generation in time and standards +of literature. His mother was “one of the people.” +The boy was inclined to study sculpture and he was +sent to art schools in Breslau, Jena, and in Italy. He +was a slow pupil; his brother, Carl, seemed almost the +only person who expressed faith in his gifts or future +success. With his art studies he combined agriculture +and history. After a brief apprenticeship as modeler, +he decided that he would be an actor; he had a lisp that +interfered with the continuance of this histrionic hope. +He married a woman of wealth and moved to Berlin, +in 1885, where he became identified with “The Free +Stage” movement and began to write plays. Byron +had been one of his earlier literary heroes; in <i>The Fate +of the Children of Prometheus</i>, he recorded some +impressions of travel along the same route as <i>Childe +Harold’s Pilgrimage</i>.</p> + +<p>In 1889 “The Free Stage Society” was formed in +Berlin; it was, in a way, “an imitation of Antoine’s +Free Theatre, organized two years before,” says +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>Barrett H. Clark in <i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_79_79" href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> +Among the founders were Otto Brahm, Maximilian +Harden, Theodor Wolff and others who wished to produce +plays of varied types, especially the work of naturalistic +writers. Hauptmann came under the influences +of Bruno Wille, the socialist, and Arno Holz, +the dramatist; certain reactions from this companionship +of minds may be traced in his plays <i>Before Dawn</i>, +<i>Colleague Crampton</i>, and <i>Florian Geyer</i>. Brahm was +the director of this Free Stage Society which, in 1894, +after fulfilling its mission for Germany, was merged +into the Deutsches Theatre. Among the plays by +Hauptmann written under this stimulus, in addition to +the three mentioned above, were <i>The Festival of Peace</i>, +<i>Lonely Lives</i>, <i>The Weavers</i>, <i>The Beaver Coat</i>, and +<i>The Assumption of Hannele</i>. <i>Before Dawn</i>, written +in the Silesian mountains and staged in Berlin, in 1889, +was a haunting tragedy with loose construction. The +ribald father and his low associates, and the daughter, +who kills herself to escape assault at their hands, combine +to make a gripping, repulsive story with certain +dramatic possibilities that are not fulfilled.</p> + +<p><i>The Weavers</i> showed progress in technic and characterization +of a group. Here no single individual plays +the leading part; the group of weavers, the mob at +the time of crisis, are the principal actors. There are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>marked contrasts in setting between the home of the +rich capitalist and the poverty of the weavers, between +the government’s indifference and the industrial slavery +of the victims of rapacity. One of the most +poignant passages is the monologue of old Ansorge, +in Act II; he cannot believe that the King will fail +to help them, if word is sent to him of their needs. +When Jaeger assures him it is futile, that the rich +people are as “cunning as the devil,” his lament for the +home that must be sacrificed, where his father sat at +the loom for more than forty years, is pathetic and +dramatic.</p> + +<p><i>The Assumption of Hannele</i>, which appeared in +1893 and had a germ-idea not unlike that of <i>Before +Dawn</i>, created sharp discussion in Germany. There +was protest against its performance. The next year it +was brought to the United States, to be staged at the +Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York. It was translated +into English by William Archer and by Charles +Henry Meltzer. Reformers of many kinds denounced +the play without a hearing. They threatened the +author, who had come to this country to see the performance +and to advise with his publisher, with arrest; +the same fate was to fall upon the translator, Charles +Henry Meltzer, and the actress who was to play the +leading rôle. “Some representatives of the press, with +critics and authors, were bidden to a private performance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>and the next day the newspapers, with a few +impenitent exceptions, published eulogies of <i>Hannele</i>! +No one was arrested. And the public performance +took place.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_80_80" href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>The American translator of both <i>The Assumption +of Hannele</i> and <i>The Sunken Bell</i>, Mr. Charles Henry +Meltzer, has described Hauptmann at this period, in +the Foreword to <i>The Sunken Bell</i>. He had expected +to meet an aggressive, self-satisfied man. On the contrary, +he found one who seemed like a student, with +shy, boyish manners; he might have been classified as a +curate or a teacher; “A painful, introspective, hunted +earnestness was stamped upon his face—the face of a +thinker, a dreamer, a genius” (Foreword). <i>Hannele</i> +was not a success theatrically in New York. <i>The +Weavers</i>, at the Irving Place Theatre, attracted somewhat +more attention but the time was too indifferent +to such plays in America; one could not forecast the +cordial reception for problem plays and grim tragedies, +with mystic elements, three decades later.</p> + +<p>It was eighteen years before the Swedish Academy +gave world recognition and honor to Hauptmann. +A few men and women of literary insight—or foresight—proclaimed +a future for the creator of such a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>“dream-poem” as <i>Hannele</i>. Gradually, readers became +interested and stirred by this strange play based +upon the weird apparitions of the fevered brain of the +little waif, the poetic chorus of the angels, the comfort +of her mother and Pastor Gottwald, in contrast with +the terrifying fear of her father’s return, the stormy +December evening in this mountain almshouse, and the +poems of “The Stranger” which cast a spell of religious +peace upon the reader, as the mystic, green +light fell upon the face of dying Hannele. This +“dream-poem,” as Hauptmann called it, won for him +the Grillparzer prize in Germany. Two years later, +after the failure of <i>Florian Geyer</i> to win plaudits of +dramatic critics, he wrote another play of symbolism +and anapestic meters, combining the realities of life +with mystic allurements, and he called it “A Fairy-Tale +Play,” <i>Die versunkene Glocke</i>. His most severe +critics were convinced of his lyrical quality and dramatic +power.</p> + +<p>The basic material for this play, <i>The Sunken Bell</i>, +says its translator, Mr. Meltzer, is found in Grimm’s +Teutonic Mythology. Here are the characters of the +bell maker, his wife, the elfish spirit, the schoolmaster +and the vicar, and other factors interwoven with the +allegorical and mystical. Hauptmann visualized these +characters with consummate skill. Heinrich, the bell +forger, who seeks the sun and a new, marvellous chime +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>of bells, Magda, his faithful wife eager to free him +from domestic toils, Rautendelein, the spirit of +nature that lures him away and stirs his soul to unfulfilled +aspirations, and Wittikin, the wise woman, +the village priest and barber—all are alive and convincing. +The evasive and mystical element becomes +a part of the atmosphere of this “fairy-tale play”; +the dramatic unities are well maintained.</p> + +<p>What is the meaning of <i>The Sunken Bell</i>? Each +reader may make his own answer, for several are possible. +It is as futile to analyze it, as it is to destroy the +fantasy and mystery of <i>Peter Pan</i> or <i>The Blue Bird</i> or +<i>Dear Brutus</i>. It is too subtle, too delicate to be +treated by rigid rules of criticism. However, Mr. +Meltzer makes three pertinent explanations; it may +be a parable, the effort of all artists to reach their +ideals; it may be the effort of a reformer to remold society +by visionary ambitions; or Heinrich may embody +any human being, striving for the goal of truth and +light. As Rautendelein symbolizes Nature which +offers freedom, so Wittikin expresses the eternal +philosophy of life, opposed to the conventional creeds +of the world, like those of the barber and the vicar, +that are stumbling-blocks in the path of lofty idealism. +Heinrich fails to attain his ideal; he cannot weld the +pagan and Christian truths into one gospel, because +he is <i>human</i>, with limitations. He cannot stay on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>pinnacle of the mountain, with its mystic light and its +new sun-bells, but he has not lost the influence of +these in his life. When the vicar rejoices that “the old +Heinrich” has returned, he answers:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">That man am I, and yet ... another man.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Open the windows—Light and God stream in.⁠<a id="FNanchor_81_81" href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This play proved a moderate success, especially when +played by Sothern, and has been repeated in academic +circles, although it has not been so popular in America +as have been the plays by Ibsen, Rostand, and Maeterlinck. +It is one of the dramas that yields more of +its beauty and symbolic message to the reader than to +the spectator. The play, <i>Henry of Aue</i>, or <i>Der arme +Heinrich</i>, which was called a fable (1902) has sometimes +been listed as a sequel to <i>The Sunken Bell</i> but +they are unlike in setting and theme. Heinrich, the +crusader, is attacked with leprosy at the summit of his +glory—a punishment for his insolence to God. The +healing begins when he purges his soul of despair and +hatred and begins to recognize “Beneficence” in Nature +and Life. There are well drawn characters, especially +Heinrich, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried, Brigitta, and +Ottegebe, the farmer’s daughter, whose influence is +strong in the “cure” for the hero. As dramatic art +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>this play is inferior to <i>Hannele</i> or <i>The Sunken Bell</i>, +but the reader’s interest is sustained in the leading +character, from his tragic condition as an outcast, +with a wooden clapper to warn people of his approach, +to the last scene of his redemption by love.</p> + +<p>During the years since he received the Nobel prize, +Hauptmann has written several plays and novels that +continue to reveal his dual traits as realist and idealist. +The writings during the World War have a tang of +bitterness. Ludwig Lewisohn has edited eight volumes +of Hauptmann’s <i>Dramatic Works</i> (Huebsch, +New York, 1915-1925). The introductions are informing +and the translations are clear and strong. In +the series are included several Social and Domestic +Plays as well as “Symbolic and Legendary Dramas.” +<i>Parsival</i>, a play translated by Oakley Williams, has +an ethical or religious tone with sympathetic insight +into humanity. “Heartache” was the name of Parsival’s +mother; said her creator, “I should hate to +make anyone sad, but I believe we might call every +mother, at any rate, very, very, many mothers by this +name.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_82_82" href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> There are symbolism and poetic sermonizing +in this drama of Parsival, “Bearer of Burdens”; +his development from a care-free youth to later responsibilities +for world burdens is well portrayed. Traces +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>of irony and humor are found. The setting of the +play, <i>And Pippa Dances</i>, is picturesque, in the Silesian +mountains. Wann is a grotesque element and the +tales of “the Wild Huntsman” are entertaining; Pippa, +the fair-haired daughter of the glass blower, is the +persuasive character. There is a lack of dramatic +unity in certain scenes. Translations of this play, +and of <i>Elga</i>, have been made by Mary Harned +in <i>Poet Lore</i> (Boston, 1906-1909). <i>And Pippa +Dances</i> is included in Volume V of the plays edited by +Mr. Lewisohn.</p> + +<p>Among interesting, intensive studies of Hauptmann +as dramatist, is the thesis by Walter H. P. Trumbaeur, +on <i>Gerhart Hauptmann and John Galsworthy; a +Parallel</i> (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, +1917).⁠<a id="FNanchor_83_83" href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> The parallelism is traced, with occasional +excess of effort, between their careers, their themes, +and certain plays like <i>Hannele</i> and <i>The Little Dream</i>, +<i>Michael Kramer</i> and <i>A Bit o’ Love</i>, and <i>The Weavers</i> +and <i>Strife</i>. Both dramatists, says the critic, seek to +escape social bondage; both are vitally concerned in +social problems; both are realists temperamentally; +both have a purpose to enlighten rather than to delight; +both see moral values and, also, <i>the irony of things</i>. +Hauptmann is more interested in characters while +Galsworthy’s main interest lies in the <i>relations</i> between +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>characters. In both writers, there is a strain of idealism, +seeking <i>truth</i>, material and spiritual. Another +interesting thesis is by Mary Ayres Quimby, on <i>Nature +Background in the Dramas of Gerhart Hauptmann</i> +(University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1918). +Among later plays <i>A Winter Ballad</i> and <i>The Festival +Play</i> register the fearless assault of this dramatist +upon vices and the exaltation of an idealism which is +“union with Nature.”</p> + +<p>The best work of Hauptmann in fiction has been +attracting attention and becoming familiar to English +readers. <i>The Fool in Christ: Emanuel Quint</i> has +been translated by Thomas Seltzer (Huebsch, 1911); +<i>Atlantis</i>, translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer +(1912), and <i>Phantom</i> and <i>The Heretic of Soana</i>, both +translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan (1922-1923). +The characterizations are forceful, with humor that is +sometimes broad and, again, subtle. Daring satire +and exposition of modern social problems are qualities +that arrest the interest of the reader and attest the +brilliant mind of the writer, in the recent, neo-romantic +novel, <i>The Island of the Great Mother</i>, translated this +year by Willa and Edwin Muir (Huebsch). The +leaders in this “Women’s State” are delineated with +shrewd, ironical skill. Phaon, the solitary “masculine” +on the island, passes through strange adventures before +he reaches maturity and finds his “ideal woman.” In +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>his keen, illumining analysis of Hauptmann’s poetic +plays, <i>Hannele</i> and <i>The Sunken Bell</i>, in <i>A Study of +the Modern Drama</i> (New York, 1925), Barrett H. +Clark accepts the statement of other critics that these +are not “well-made plays,” but he finds in them the +qualities which are high lights in this writer’s masterpieces—“psychological +interest, dramatic as distinguished +from purely lyrical poetry, a fairly well constructed +plot and an atmosphere of beauty.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_84_84" href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72_72" href="#FNanchor_72_72" class="label">[72]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1910.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73_73" href="#FNanchor_73_73" class="label">[73]</a> <i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i> by Georg Brandes, +New York, 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74_74" href="#FNanchor_74_74" class="label">[74]</a> <i>Gesammelte Werke</i>: Vol. III, p. 300, translated in <i>Creative +Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i> (by Georg Brandes) by Rasmus B. +Anderson, New York, 1924. By permission of Thomas Y. Crowell +Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75_75" href="#FNanchor_75_75" class="label">[75]</a> Introduction by Mary A. Frost to edition of <i>L’Arrabiata</i>, published +by Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1896.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76_76" href="#FNanchor_76_76" class="label">[76]</a> An excellent study of Heyse is by Professor von Klenze in <i>German +Classics</i> edited by Kuno Francke, German Publication Society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77_77" href="#FNanchor_77_77" class="label">[77]</a> <i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i> by Georg Brandes, +New York, 1924, Thomas Y. Crowell Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78_78" href="#FNanchor_78_78" class="label">[78]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1912.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79_79" href="#FNanchor_79_79" class="label">[79]</a> D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80_80" href="#FNanchor_80_80" class="label">[80]</a> <i>The Sunken Bell</i>: a Fairy Play in Five Acts by Gerhart Hauptmann, +freely rendered into English verse by Charles Henry Meltzer, +New York, 1913, Foreword. By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81_81" href="#FNanchor_81_81" class="label">[81]</a> <i>The Sunken Bell</i> by Gerhart Hauptmann, freely rendered into +English verse by Charles Henry Meltzer, New York, 1913, Act III. +By permission of Doubleday, Page & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82_82" href="#FNanchor_82_82" class="label">[82]</a> <i>Parsival</i>, a play by Gerhart Hauptmann, translated by Oakley +Williams, New York, 1915. By permission of The Macmillan Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83_83" href="#FNanchor_83_83" class="label">[83]</a> By permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84_84" href="#FNanchor_84_84" class="label">[84]</a> P. 82. By permission of D. Appleton & Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX"> + CHAPTER IX + <br> + MAETERLINCK—BELGIAN SYMBOLIST AND + POET-PLAYWRIGHT (1911) + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1911 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Maeterlinck, Maurice, born 1862: “because of his many-sided +literary activity and especially because of his dramatic creations +which are marked by wealth of fancy and poetic idealism that +sometimes, in the fairy play’s veiled form, reveals deep inspiration +and, also, in a mysterious way, appeals to the reader’s feeling +and imagination.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_85_85" href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p148" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p148.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co.</i> + </blockquote> + <p>MAURICE MAETERLINCK</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The first decade of the Nobel prizes was over and +a new group of candidates was coming into the literary +limelight in 1911. There was hopeful speculation +that the award might go to either Russia or America, +the two larger countries that have not yet been included. +There was, however, a new type of poetry and +drama, and a writer of unique personality, that were +attracting widespread interest—namely, the mystical +and symbolic plays by Maurice Maeterlinck. The announcement +that he was the winner for 1911 caused +much pride to the little kingdom of Belgium. Maeterlinck +wrote most of his plays in French so they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>gained readers more quickly than those of his Belgian +predecessors and contemporaries. <i>On the Scent</i>, the +drama by Charles Van Lerberghe, has been compared +to Maeterlinck’s earlier work by Barrett H. Clark in +<i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_86_86" href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> Other Belgian playwrights +commended by Mr. Clark are Henri Maubel +and Edmond Picard.</p> + +<p>Maeterlinck was not quite fifty years old when the +Nobel honor came to him. He was born in Ghent, +in 1862, of good ancestry. He recalled the surroundings +of his early life—the gardens and the sea and the +ships in sight. Especially was he interested in the +Flemish peasants as they sat, in quiet, stolid attitudes, +in the doorways of their cottages or by the smoking +lamps. One group impressed his boyhood memory, +as he saw them on his way from school—seven toothless +brothers and a sister. Their lethargy and inert +lives awakened him, in young manhood, to psychological +curiosity; their strange traditions and unreasoning +fears are reflected in some of his plays. His +father was anxious to have him study law, so he read +and practised for a little time in Ghent—long enough +“to lose a case or two,” he said with humorous reminiscence. +He spent seven years at a Jesuit College, and +showed a mind of philosophical trend. He thought +that in Paris he might come into contact with men of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>literary rank and scholars. Villiers was his especial +influence there; another inspirational friend was +Octave Mirabeau to whom Maeterlinck dedicated his +first published plays, <i>Princess Maleine</i> and <i>Pelléas and +Mélisande</i>. In too extravagant praise Mirabeau +hailed Maeterlinck as “the Belgian Shakespeare” and +Maeterlinck became the victim of flattery, on one +hand, and ridicule on the other. He bore himself +with calm dignity then as he has all his life; his +serene manner and low voice, in contrast with his +muscular physique, have been noted by many acquaintances.</p> + +<p>Before the death of his father, in 1889, he returned +to Belgium and lived there for seven years, continuing +his studies of nature and metaphysics, writing marionette +plays, and more serious dramas, and making +translations from authors of other tongues, including +English, that left impressions upon his mind. He declared +that the three writers who exerted the strongest +influence during these formative years were Emerson, +Novalis, and Ruysbroeck, the medieval mystic whose +writings were translated by Maeterlinck when he was +a student at the Jesuit College. To visitors from +America he delights to show his worn copy of Emerson. +In his collected studies, <i>On Emerson and Other Essays</i>, +translated by Montrose J. Moses, he summarizes the +Concord philosopher’s thoughts about “the greatness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>of man’s spiritual nature, about the forces of the soul.” +In conclusion of his vital influence, he writes: “Emerson +has come to affirm simply this equal and secret +grandeur of our life. He has encompassed us with +silence and with wonder. He has placed a shaft of +light beneath the feet of the workman as he leaves the +workshop. He has shown us all the powers of heaven +and earth, at the same time intent on sustaining the +threshold on which two neighbors speak of the rain +that falls or the wind that blows. And above these +two passers-by who accost each other, he has made +us see the countenance of God who smiles with the +countenance of God. He is nearer than any other to +our common life. He is the most attentive, the most +assiduous, the most honest, the most scrupulous, and +probably the most human of guides. He is the sage +of commonplace days, and commonplace days are, in +sum, the substance of our being.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_87_87" href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p> + +<p>In 1896 Maeterlinck returned to Paris and there he +has made his home. He refused to renounce his +Belgian citizenship, however, that he might become a +member of the French Academy; during the war he +did valiant service in many ways for his native country. +In his home town to-day, and at Brussels, the visitor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>is told of Belgian pride in Maeterlinck; the people +say, “You know he has lived in Paris almost all his +life but he is a true patriot, just the same.” To the +years in Belgium, between 1889 and 1896, belong such +plays as <i>The Blind</i>, <i>The Intruder</i>, <i>The Seven Princesses</i>, +<i>Alladine and Palomides</i> and <i>The Death of +Tintagiles</i>. It is a question whether he has surpassed, +in dramatic vigor combined with mystic beauty, that +play of earlier period, <i>Pelléas and Mélisande</i>. Like +the story of <i>Paolo and Francesca</i>, which it resembles in +theme, it has an appealing quality both on the stage +and in the book. The tragic death of Mélisande, +after the murder of her lover and the birth of her +daughter, reflects a high-light of dramatic power. +The lines are simple in diction, masterly in structure +and suggestion.</p> + +<p>One of the first translators of Maeterlinck into +English was Richard Hovey, the brilliant American +poet who died in his prime. In two decorative volumes, +first issued in Chicago (Stone & Kimball) in +1894-1896, he interpreted, as well as translated, these +earlier plays already cited. The Introduction in the +first volume is informing for all students of modern +drama. Mr. Hovey defined Symbolism, as distinguished +from Realism and Expressionism; he joined +with the name of Maeterlinck, such other exponents of +Symbolism as Mallarmé, Gilbert Parker, and Bliss +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>Carman. Two traits distinguished the Belgian from +other symbolists of his day, according to this interpreter—“the +peculiarity of his technique, and the +limitation of his emotional range.” The use of reiteration +is cited as a French characteristic for effective +emphasis. “The danger-border between the tragic +and the ridiculous” is a menace to Maeterlinck. More +true of his earlier than his later plays is another restriction +noted by Mr. Hovey: “His master-tone is +always terror—terror, too, of one type—that of the +churchyard.... He is the poet of the sepulchre, like +Poe—as masterly in his own methods as Poe was in +his, and destined, perhaps, to exert the same wide influence.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_88_88" href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> +<i>Premonition</i> plays a large part in the +plays of Maeterlinck from <i>The Blind</i> and <i>Home</i> to +<i>Joyzelle</i>.</p> + +<p>In Paris, under the stimulus of literary associates +and the comradeship of Georgette Le Blanc (the actress +who became his wife), Maeterlinck wrote three plays +that register his dramatic climax—<i>Joyzelle</i>, <i>Monna +Vanna</i> (1903) and <i>The Blue Bird</i> (1908). Probably, +the last symbolic drama was the primal cause of the +Nobel award. The idealism, the delicate fancy, the +imaginative charm, the fascinating characters in every +scene, real or fantastic, and the pervasive message for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>every age and land, give to this play a perennial appeal. +As Maeterlinck affirmed, this play, like others +of the type, may lose some of its “mystic transparency” +and symbolism on the stage but it has been alluring +both as acted play and as a film. Why there should +have been “a sequel” to such a perfect, complete play as +<i>The Blue Bird</i> is a question that has troubled many a +critic. Resentment against <i>The Betrothal</i>, the continuance +of this fairy-tale play, however, gives way before +appreciation of its fine passages and strong +message. At the same time, the impression lingers +that Tyltyl, like Peter Pan, should “never have grown +up.” Alexander Teixeira de Mattos has made a fine +translation of <i>The Betrothal</i> and Edith Wynne Mattison +was a charming “Fairy Berylune,” when the play +was given in New York. Here Maeterlinck ventured +almost too near the borderland between fantasy +and farce, especially in Act II, where the girls, +who would marry Tyltyl, reveal their lower natures.</p> + +<p>The versatility of Maeterlinck is evidenced by comparing +such plays, within ten years, as <i>Joyzelle</i> and +<i>The Blue Bird</i>, <i>Monna Vanna</i> and <i>Mary Magdalene</i>. +<i>Joyzelle</i> has elements of dramatic ecstasy with a tragic +undertone. Professor William Lyon Phelps has summarized +well the salient qualities of this play and its +heroine in <i>Essays on Modern Dramatists</i> (New York, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>1921). <i>Monna Vanna</i>, written especially for Maeterlinck’s +wife, is a rare blend of intense emotionalism and +convincing characters with a crisis which challenges the +reason. Giovanna, or Monna Vanna, wife of Guido +Colonna, commander of the garrison at Pisa, will +remain as Maeterlinck’s most vital heroine. Prinzivalle, +general of the Florentines and her boyhood +lover, is an idealized hero for his age but convincing +in his chivalry. Medieval atmosphere and dramatic +action accentuate the strong dialogue of this play. +Ten years later, in 1913, appeared <i>Mary Magdalene</i>. +In his Introduction, Maeterlinck relates, with some +feeling, his effort to win cordial response from Paul +Heyse, who had written a play on the same theme +and with certain situations that the Belgian wished to +use. Meeting with a refusal, “none too courteous I +regret to say,” he decided to take his privilege of +using Biblical words and his previously conceived situation. +He gives to Mary Magdalene a few masterly +lines; to Joseph of Arimathea, she says, “We save +those whom we love; we listen to them afterwards.” +To the Roman Verus, who would have her save Jesus +by yielding herself to him, she replies: “I should perhaps +sin against all that he loves, to save what I love. +I could save him in spite of himself; but no longer in +spite of myself. If I bought his life at the price +which you offer, all that he wished, all that he loved, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>would be dead. I cannot plunge the flame into the +mire to save the lamp.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_89_89" href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p> + +<p>The war left deep scars upon Maeterlinck’s spirit; +they are reflected in such essays and plays as <i>The +Wrack of the Storm</i>, <i>Belgium at War</i>, <i>The Burgomaster +at Stilemonde</i>, <i>The Cloud that Lifted</i>, and <i>The +Power of the Dead</i>. Some of the essays, or chapters, +in the book first mentioned, deal with psychometry, the +interest which is expanded in other books like <i>The +Great Secret</i>, <i>Our Eternity</i>, <i>The Unknown Guest</i>, and +<i>The Light Beyond</i>. That man is the product of unseen +forces, that he is molded by “hidden powers,” +that humanity and nature are always closely linked, +were tenets that underlay such books as <i>Treasure of +the Humble</i>, <i>Life and Flowers</i>, and <i>The Life of the +Bee</i>. He became a beekeeper that he might study at +first-hand the traits of these workers and apply their +analogy to humanity—much as Dallas Lore Sharp has +done more recently in <i>The Spirit of the Hive</i>. In the +beehives and the garden, Maeterlinck finds the same +complications and conflicts, the same “domination of +the spirit of the race,” as among men. In an essay +in his earlier book, <i>Treasure of the Humble</i>, he expressed +a surety which has been verified with the passing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>of the years: “A time may come perhaps—and +many things herald its approach—a time will come, +perhaps, when our souls will know each other without +the intermediary of the senses.”</p> + +<p>To penetrate beyond the tangible things of life requires +courage but brings light to the spirit. In his +plays, <i>Ariadne and Blue Beard</i> and <i>Sister Beatrice</i>, +translated by Bernard Miall into English verse +(1916), and <i>The Miracle of Saint Anthony</i>, translated +by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1918), Maeterlinck +has suggested the neglected but magic “key” +which may gain for us new adventures into “the prohibitions +of the tangible world.” The <i>premonition</i> of +his earlier plays has become the <i>intuition</i> which penetrates +the unknown and supernatural. Life has been +symbolized by him as “a garden,” as an “inner temple,” +as analogous to the world of plants and “the swarm” +of the bees. He seldom reveals passionate feeling in +his writings, but he exemplifies search for truth, “care +for moral stoic beauty.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_90_90" href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> Intuition, as interpreted +by Bergson, he has expanded into the “raison mystique” +by which one may penetrate the unknown and the +mystic. There are shades of gloom and sadness in +many of his plays; his characters are sometimes weak +in conflict with the forces about them; there are hints +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>of fatalism in plays like <i>The Intruder</i>, <i>The Death of +Tintagiles</i>, and <i>Interior</i>, but the keynote of Maeterlinck, +in his maturity, has been that of spiritual progress +and mystic idealism.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85_85" href="#FNanchor_85_85" class="label">[85]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86_86" href="#FNanchor_86_86" class="label">[86]</a> New York, 1925, p. 161.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87_87" href="#FNanchor_87_87" class="label">[87]</a> <i>On Emerson and Other Essays</i> by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated +by Montrose J. Moses, New York, 1912. By permission of Dodd, +Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88_88" href="#FNanchor_88_88" class="label">[88]</a> <i>The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck</i>, translated by Richard Hovey, +Chicago, 1894-96.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89_89" href="#FNanchor_89_89" class="label">[89]</a> <i>Mary Magdalene</i> by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alexander +Teixeira de Mattos, New York, 1910, Act IV. By permission +of Dodd, Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90_90" href="#FNanchor_90_90" class="label">[90]</a> <i>Some Modern Belgian Writers</i> by Turquet Milnes, New York, +1917.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X"> + CHAPTER X + <br> + RABINDRANATH TAGORE: BENGALESE + MYSTIC-POET + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize for the year 1913 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Rabindranath Tagore, born 1861: “For reason of the inner +depth and the high aim revealed in his poetic writings; also +for the brilliant way in which he translates the beauty and +freshness of his Oriental thought into the accepted forms of +Western <i>belles-lettres</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_91_91" href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>As a Bengalese, Rabindranath Tagore, to whom the +Nobel prize was given in 1913, is a British subject. +Thus, for the second time, the honor came to Great +Britain through the writings of one whose formative +years, like those of Kipling, had been spent in India +and whose typical writings were associated with that +country. On the contrary, the words and thoughts of +this mystic-poet are so exotic, sometimes so unlocalized +in form and spirit, that they belong to world literature, +rather than to a distinctive country. Possibly no other +prize winner has been so idealistic, so international in +his appeal as this author of <i>The Gardener</i>, <i>Sadhana</i>, +and <i>The King of the Dark Chamber</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> + +<p>In his biographical study,⁠<a id="FNanchor_92_92" href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> Ernest Rhys suggests that +the award was given to Tagore because of the enthusiasm +of a Swedish Orientalist for his writings before +they were known in English. The year before the +award, however, Yeats had praised the poems of Tagore⁠<a id="FNanchor_93_93" href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> +and other poet-critics had found him an inspirational +influence. To the winner, the announcement +gave mingled gratitude and regret; the latter he expressed +in his sentence, “They have taken away my +refuge.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_94_94" href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> His life had been so untouched by external +struggles that he was, in truth, “a child of Nature.” +In <i>My Reminiscences</i>, he writes: “From my earliest +years I enjoyed a simple and intimate communion with +Nature. Each one of the cocoanut trees in our garden +had for me a distinct personality.... On opening +my eyes every morning, the blithely awakening world +used to call me to join it like a playmate.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_95_95" href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p160" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p160.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.</i> + </blockquote> + <p>RABINDRANATH TAGORE</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Born in Calcutta, May 6, 1861, he came into a rare +inheritance for his later work as religious leader and +writer. Like all children of the higher social classes +in India, he was environed from his birth with poetic +atmosphere. His blessing, as a newborn babe, was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>spoken in verse; as he grew older many of his studies +were in poetic form. The family name was Thakur, +Anglicized into Tagore; his father and grandfathers +had been identified with education and civil reforms. +Raja Sir Sourindra Mohun Tagore was founder of +the Bengal Music School; another, Abanindranath +Tagore, was a noted painter and leader in art-movements. +His father might have been a Maharaja +(a great king) but he preferred to be Maharshi (a +great sage), thus he was more closely linked with the +people than with nobility. He insisted upon paying +debts which his father, a prince, had left. He would +have made himself a pauper but the creditors refused +to accept such sacrifices, so he had a certain amount +of property. He devoted himself to spiritual teachings +and traveled through India on such missions, +gaining the respect of all classes.</p> + +<p>The son who won this Nobel prize was the youngest +in a family of seven brothers and three sisters. +He was lonely as a child, for his mother died when he +was young and he was often left with men-servants for +days. The return of his father marked the “gala-days”—<i>his</i> +presence pervaded the whole house. Nature +was the boy’s comrade and he would often dig +with a bamboo stick in the ground to find any possible +“mysteries.” Perfumes affected his senses and left +vivid memories, as he tells in his <i>Reminiscences</i>. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>school life, after he was six years, was a brief period of +unhappiness. He was, perhaps, stubborn to a degree +and was ranked as the lowest in his class because he refused +to answer orally, but he thought out problems so +well, in written work, that he amazed his teachers and +was given first place. The Oriental Seminary, the +Normal School, the Bengal Academy—all seemed to +him “prison-houses.” At home he studied, with a tutor, +history, sciences, and English literature. At first, +he laughed, somewhat scornfully, at English poetry because +of the unusual sounds.</p> + +<p>An influence of this formative age was his nephew—older +than he was, Jyotiprokash, who read <i>Hamlet</i> +to the lad and urged him to write verses and poetic +imaginings. He saw a future for this boy with his +fancies and love of Nature. A teacher at the Normal +School, also, inspired him to write, asking him to complete +lines or stanzas which had been begun by another. +Although his father was often separated from +the boy, he realized the child’s promise and his sensitive +nature; he gave him a vacation trip into the +Himalayas, stopping at Bolpur, the Peace Cottage, +where his father often retired and where the son was +to have his own home later. In his “blue blank-book,” +that he carried always with him, were written poems +suggested by scenery and incidents of this trip. His +father taught him botany and astronomy, as well as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>English, Sanskrit, and Bengali. Back in Calcutta he +“played truant from school,” sometimes, and caused +his older sister to write in despair of the fulfillment of +their hopes for him; that he would be “the only unsuccessful +man in the family.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_96_96" href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> For a year he went to +London to study law but he was homesick and returned +to Bengal.</p> + +<p>In his <i>Reminiscences</i> at fifty, he recalled the years +between sixteen and twenty-three as those of unrest +and “extreme wildness.” He was the victim of the +impulses of strong, young manhood; for a time he was +an epicure rather than a mystic. He delighted in +silk robes and luscious foods and romances in love. +An expression of this time may be found in the poem, +“The Gleaming Vision of Youth,” in <i>The Gardener</i>. +Other reflections are in <i>Sandhya Sangit</i> and <i>The Songs +of Sunrise</i>, more philosophical. Two poems, “The +Eternity of Life” and “The Eternity of Death,” indicate +the period of transition from this time to the +years of religious meditation. At twenty-three he +married happily; at the request of his father, he went +to oversee the family estate at Shilaida, on the Ganges. +Here, with intervals of travel, he remained for seventeen +years, living close to the people and to Nature, +and writing some of his tales and poems. One of his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>most famous love poems, showing mingled sensuous +and spiritual strains, is “The Beloved at Noon and in +the Morning.”</p> + +<p>In a house boat on the Padma he often spent hours +of meditation, long evenings of reverie, that were pictured +in the background of his idyllic song, “Golden +Bengal.” He studied the poverty, trials, and simple +idealism of the people; he knew elementary medicine +and cared for the sick; he was saddened by the +loss of rice crops in destructive rains; he was determined +that tenants should not suffer unduly from tax-gatherers. +He brought upon himself the jealous criticism +of British magistrates in the district and was +called a revolutionary and visionary disturber. He +had already formulated his ideas of both a small republic +and the school at Bolpur when he was interrupted +in his plans by domestic sorrows. He journeyed +to England and the United States for recuperation +and inspiration.</p> + +<p>The first grief was the death of his wife for whom +he had a deep love. Within a few months his daughter +died of tuberculosis. Shortly afterwards came another +poignant sorrow in the loss of his youngest son. +With the serenity of a mind that recognizes Nature +as mother and friend, he turned toward more intimate +relations with spiritual and religious thoughts. These +are revealed especially in <i>Gitanjali</i>, the first book by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>which he became well known to English readers. It +was written in English with vigor and grace, with distinctive +structure. In 1912-13 he came to the United +States, partly for a change of scene, partly to add to +his knowledge of industrial improvements and agricultural +equipment, that he might apply this information +in his school at Bolpur. His older son was with him, +to learn methods of harvesting. In his biographical +study of Tagore, Basanta Koomar Roy⁠<a id="FNanchor_97_97" href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> tells interesting +facts about the visit to this poet and discussion, +with him, of the possibilities that he might win the +Nobel prize. He was then at Urbana, Illinois, with +his son. He was impressed with the sunshine of our +climate—“enchanted American days” he called them. +He liked the superior engineering and business abilities +of Americans but he deplored their lack of culture. +He was urged to translate more of his writings into +English and was assured that, should he win the Nobel +prize, it would increase international brotherhood and +world peace, as well as raise India among the nations. +Sceptical of the probability he said, should it come to +him, he would use the money to start an industrial department +in his school at Bolpur.</p> + +<p>Ten months later the award was made to Tagore. +Some of his compatriots were his most severe critics, +complaining that he “dabbled” in too many forms of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>literature. He admitted the charge but averred that +poetry represented “the deep truth” of his life. As a +poet he has revived the work, in kind, of the Vaishnava +poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of mystic +writers like the Upanishads who lived between 2000 +and 1000 <span class="allsmcap">B. C.</span> He adapted the beauties of these +poets to modern interpretation. He was indebted, +also, to Kabir, the mystic of the fifteenth century, and +to Ramprosad of Bengal, of the eighteenth. In his +form and spiritual progress he has shown marked +originality, following the work of Bengalese like Raja +Ram Mohun Roy and Bankim, who had cleared away +many obstacles of British domination over native +expression.</p> + +<p>Much has been written about the school at Bolpur +to which, true to his promise, he has devoted funds +from his award. In his essays, <i>Sadhana, or the Realization +of Life</i>, are found several of the “student +addresses” made here; the war caused changed conditions +and frustrated some of the founder’s hopes. +This school was started in 1902, approved by his +father, and with the goal, “To revive the spirit of our +ancient system of education ... to make the students +feel that there is a higher and a nobler thing in life than +practical efficiency.” At first, such a venture met with +curiosity and some scorn. Parents sent here unmanageable +or backward boys. They had simple surroundings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>and lived and slept outdoors; they sang +chants as the birds begin their morning songs; they +had time for individual prayer and thought, clad in +white silk robes. They enjoyed games and long walks, +simple food, no wine or meat, music in the evening +and plays, written by Rabindranath Tagore; they +wrote and illustrated school papers. There was self-government +and close, brotherly relations between +boys and teachers. Their scholastic work became +satisfactory to the University at Calcutta. The boys +were happy, often refusing to go home for their +vacations, unless compelled to do so by their parents.</p> + +<p>In addition to his work as educator for boys, +Rabindranath Tagore has been a strong influence for +more training and freedom for the women of India. +He believes that the life of woman, in a generic sense, +is more full and harmonious than that of man. He +found the ideas of both Hindu teachers and Christian +missionaries were extreme, as he viewed them, but he +advocated education and broadened opportunities. As +an Oriental he has poetized the love of the home, the +coming of the woman at the end of the day, “with a +pitcher of nectar,” to bring comfort to the home. +His poetic play, <i>Chitra</i>, much discussed and puzzling +in passages to a Western mind, is a frank exposition +of his philosophy regarding the sensuous and spiritual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>qualities of women. Other expressions are in <i>The +Home and the World</i> (1919) and <i>Personality</i> (1917) +and in plays like <i>Sanyas</i>, and <i>The King and the Queen</i> +(in <i>Sacrifice and Other Plays</i>, New York, 1917). +That he is a lover of children, and able to interpret +their thoughts and fancies with unmatched beauty, is +evident to all readers of Sir Rabindranath Tagore’s +writings (he was knighted in 1915). His own simplicity +of nature and life, his imagination in its purity +and freedom, make him an intimate comrade +for boys and girls. The year after he received the +Nobel prize, the original, unrhymed poems, <i>The +Crescent Moon</i>, were translated, with effective illustrations +in color. <i>Stray Birds</i>, with frontispiece in +color by Willy Pogany (1921), is another appealing +and typical book, but more mature and philosophical.</p> + +<p>The periods of childhood, from babyhood to school +days and letter-writing, are unfolded in <i>The Crescent +Moon</i> in delightful pictures. Especially intuitive are +“Baby’s World,” “Paper Boats,” “The Little Big +Man,” and “The First Jasmines.” Humor enlivens +many of these fancies and questions of the child, as in +“Twelve O’Clock” and “Authorship”; the latter +raises a query—<i>why</i> the mother allows father to waste +“heaps of paper” without a protest, while a single +sheet, taken for a paper boat, may bring a remonstrance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>to the child. There is emotional beauty and +Oriental philosophy in “The Beginning.” “Where +have I come from?” asks the child, and the mother:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine.⁠<a id="FNanchor_98_98" href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>During the twelve years since the Nobel award, +Tagore has translated several of his earlier poems, +plays and tales and has written <i>My Reminiscences</i>, +one of the most illumining autobiographies of the last +decade. He has expanded his ideas on government, +education and religion in books like <i>Nationalism</i> and +<i>Creative Unity</i>. He has written <i>Prayers for Mother +India</i>—that she may be raised from her chronic want +to a place of influence and success. He has urged +united action by the people of England and those of +India to bring about this material union. He has said, +“One section of the human race cannot be permanently +strong by depriving another section of its inherent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>rights.” Taking as his text that mooted line from +Kipling,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Tagore said, at a banquet in London: “I have learned +that, though our tongues are different and our habits +dissimilar, at the bottom of our hearts we are one.... +East is East and West is West—God forbid that it +should be otherwise—but the twain must meet in amity, +peace and mutual understanding; their meeting will be +all the more fruitful because of their differences; it +must lead both to holy wedlock before the common +altar of Humanity.”</p> + +<p>In the sympathetic, analytical study of <i>Mahatma +Gandhi</i> by Romain Rolland, there are some excellent +sentences of comparison of these two religious leaders +of modern India. “Tagore looked upon Gandhi as a +saint,” says M. Rolland, and he deplored his political +activities, especially his non-coöperation doctrine. +Tagore seeks and finds harmony in coöperation. He +wrote, “My prayer is that India may represent the +coöperation of all the peoples of the world. For +India, unity is truth, and division evil.” In summary, +the French writer says, “To my mind Gandhi is as +universal as Tagore, but in a different way. Gandhi +is a universalist through his religious feeling; Tagore +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>is intellectually universal. While venerating him, +(Gandhi) we understand and approve Tagore.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_99_99" href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> In +<i>Creative Unity</i>, Tagore has included an essay upon +“The Nation” in which he stresses “the fight” to-day +between “the living spirit of the people” and the +methods of organizing nations.</p> + +<p>If one were to prophesy which type of Sir Rabindranath +Tagore’s writings will survive among many +peoples, the chances are in favor of his mystical prose-poems +and his national songs. The latter have kept +alive the love of home-country and faith in India. +They are sung by boatmen on the Ganges, by the +peasants in the fields, by students and groups at all +kinds of festivals and conferences. These songs are of +two kinds; one is a wistful idealization of the “Motherland,” +with graphic pictures of scenery, homes, and +religion; the second type is the “Song of Consecration,” +of sacrifice and valor, exampled in “Follow the +Gleam,” to which many young Nationalists have +marched and died. Bitterness is absent from nearly +every line by this poet-patriot; there is spiritual excitation, +strong appeal to love of home and broader +idealism. It has been said that contradiction is evident +between some of these national songs and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>broad humanism of many other writings, notably those +in the <i>Gitanjali</i>. Those who know the man personally, +and who are familiar with the tenets of Hindu philosophy +which he embodies, as well as the spiritual +ideals of the Upanishads, do not find it difficult to +reconcile the two creeds, as he has united them in his +“Ode to the Earth” and some of the essays in <i>Sadhana</i>.</p> + +<p>While it is gratifying to note that Rabindranath +Tagore, as prize winner, found incentive to write more +idealistic literature, yet it is evident that he never has +surpassed the earlier books of distinctive quality, books +that maintained the classic traditions of his native +literature but gave them new form and significance, +as <i>The Gardener</i>, <i>The Post Office</i>, <i>King of the Dark +Chamber</i>, <i>Gitanjali</i>, and <i>The Elder Sister</i>. When he +was in the United States he read, at colleges and other +places, many passages from <i>The Gardener</i> and <i>Gitanjali</i>. +The two books have similar tone and melody; +both are difficult to translate into adequate English because +much of the mysticism is lost in concrete words—the +same is true of his plays when they are staged without +sustaining the “illusion” of the Oriental atmosphere. +In native language the rhythm and music surpass +and interpret the words; the swaying movement +accompanies many odes and invocations. A song that +may be chanted with the music of the flute, and thus +appreciated, is one of the mystical lyrics beginning:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I am restless, I am athirst for far-away things,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirts of the dim distance.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O Great Beyond, O the keen call of my flute!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings, that I am bound in this spot, evermore.⁠<a id="FNanchor_100_100" href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><i>Gora</i>, a so-called “novel” by Rabindranath Tagore, +has been issued this current year. It tells the story +of a Hindu youth, a Brahmin, whose full name is +Gourmohan Babu. He cherishes a large-souled ambition +to “unify” India but he cannot break down the +barriers of his religious fanaticism enough to consent +to the marriage of his younger brother, Binoy +Babu, to a girl of a lower Brahmin caste. The romantic +interest vibrates from the love affairs of Gora to +that of his brother. The chief merit of the book is +not its art as fiction, for that is negative, but the +graphic presentation of religious tenets and native customs. +The author seems, at times, to be seriously +concerned about the development of his hero and the +more tolerant brother; in other places, he introduces +an element of whimsical humor and kindly irony as in +the unexpected sequel of Gora’s parentage. Poetry +and essays or short tales, rather than fiction of long-sustained +plot, are the forms of writing best adapted +to his gifts.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p> + +<p>As <i>The Gardener</i> represents the youth of Rabindranath +Tagore, with normal desires fused with +spiritual longings, so <i>Gitanjali</i> is the expression of the +mature philosopher-poet, still responsive emotionally +but seeking for “joy eternal.” He has preserved for +world literature, the philosophy and poetry of earlier +teachers like Chaitanya Deva, usually called “Nimäi,” +the Hindu poet, who lived near Bolpur, the home of +Tagore. In addition to these revivals of the earlier +tenets and aspirations in poetry, Rabindranath Tagore +has become an international humanist. He has never +lost his joy in Nature and in solitude but he has +walked forward into the vision of a united brotherhood +and a spiritual commonwealth.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91_91" href="#FNanchor_91_91" class="label">[91]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1913.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92_92" href="#FNanchor_92_92" class="label">[92]</a> <i>Rabindranath Tagore</i> by Ernest Rhys, New York, 1915.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93_93" href="#FNanchor_93_93" class="label">[93]</a> <i>Gitanjali</i>, with Introduction by W. B. Yeats, London and New +York, 1913.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94_94" href="#FNanchor_94_94" class="label">[94]</a> <i>Rabindranath Tagore: a Biographical Study</i> by Ernest Rhys, New +York, 1915, Preface, xiv. By permission of the Macmillan Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95_95" href="#FNanchor_95_95" class="label">[95]</a> <i>My Reminiscences</i> by Rabindranath Tagore, New York, 1917, +p. 225. By permission of the Macmillan Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96_96" href="#FNanchor_96_96" class="label">[96]</a> <i>Rabindranath Tagore</i> by Basanta Koomar Roy, New York, 1915, +p. 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97_97" href="#FNanchor_97_97" class="label">[97]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 189-193.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98_98" href="#FNanchor_98_98" class="label">[98]</a> <i>The Crescent Moon: Child-Poems</i> by Rabindranath Tagore, +translated from the original Bengali by the author, New York, 1913, +1916. By permission of the Macmillan Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99_99" href="#FNanchor_99_99" class="label">[99]</a> <i>Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One with the Universal +Being</i>, by Romain Rolland, translated by Catherine D. Groth, New +York, 1924. By permission of the Century Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100_100" href="#FNanchor_100_100" class="label">[100]</a> <i>Gitanjali: Song-Offerings</i> by Rabindranath Tagore, New York, +1916. By permission of the Macmillan Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI"> + CHAPTER XI + <br> + ROMAIN ROLLAND AND <i>JEAN-CHRISTOPHE</i> + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>In 1916 the prize of 1915 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Rolland, Romain, born 1866: “as homage to the exalted +idealism in his authorship, and also to the sympathy and truth +with which he has drawn different types of people.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_101_101" href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>There was no prize money awarded in literature for +1914. The announcement that the winner for 1915 +was Romain Rolland, author of <i>Jean-Christophe</i>, was +generally approved. Here was an instance when a +single book had focussed attention of readers and the +judges; this masterpiece, which had appeared in +France at intervals from 1904 to 1912, had been translated +into many languages and much discussed. It +was a mirror of the conditions of society, especially in +France and Germany at the junction of the nineteenth +and twentieth centuries; it was an exhaustive, vital +life story of a musician with aspirations, struggles, +loves, defeats, revolts, friendships, and tragic, but +triumphant, end. In the biography of Rolland by +Stefan Zweig, emphasis is laid upon the period of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>nearly fifty years of the author’s life as a quiet scholar +and musician, “an artist working without serious interruption +or serious recognition,” and then a sudden, +disturbing publicity which followed in the wake of this +novel.⁠<a id="FNanchor_102_102" href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp49" id="i_p176" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p176.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of Henry Holt & Co.</i> + </blockquote> + <p>ROMAIN ROLLAND</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Clamecy, a little town of the Morvan on the +Nivernais canal, was the birthplace of Romain Rolland, +January 29, 1866. His father was a notary; his +mother was daughter of a magistrate; she was musical +and religious, devoted to her son and the younger child, +Madelaine. Their happy home life is reflected in +pages of the section, “Antoinette,” in <i>Jean-Christophe</i>. +When he was young, Romain Rolland showed taste for +music and his mother taught him and told him stories +about great musicians. When his school days ended +at the Communal College in his native town, his father, +with rare self-sacrifice, gave up his law practice in +Clamecy and went to Paris, becoming clerk in a bank +that the boy might be educated in the best schools. +After attendance at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand until he +was twenty, he entered the Ecole Normale Supérieure +where he specialized in history. Gabriel Monod was +a teacher of surpassing influence over the minds and +characters of his students. Rolland was enthusiastic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>about Tolstoy, both as reformer and writer.⁠<a id="FNanchor_103_103" href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> For +Shakespeare he had ardent admiration, especially for +the historical plays and sonnets.</p> + +<p>Another friend of these tentative years was Paul +Claudel, the author of books with mystical tendencies +upon the history of Catholicism. Already Rolland +had expressed a fugitive, recurrent wish to write a +romance, “the history of a single-hearted artist who +bruises himself against the rocks of life.” Such was +the norm of <i>Jean-Christophe</i>. He was surprised, and +not wholly pleased, when he was told that he had won +a traveling scholarship from the Normal School and +could go to the French School of Archeology and +History at Rome. For two years he stayed in this +city, making contacts with some of the vital influences +of his life, notably the friendship with Fräulein +Malwida von Meysenburg; she was many years his +senior but still alert and inspiring. She knew intimately +scores of statesmen, writers, and artists, as +references in her book, <i>Mémoires d’une idéaliste</i>, +testify. She took a profound interest in this young +Frenchman with his musical gifts and visionary hopes. +In his essay, “To the Undying Antigone,” Rolland +speaks of his gratitude to two women—his mother and +Fräulein von Meysenburg. With the latter he went +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>to visit Wagner at Bayreuth and increased his musical +enthusiasm and knowledge. One day, as he was walking +on the Janiculum, the germ-idea and plan of his +epic novel, <i>Jean-Christophe</i>, formed in his mind but +its writing was delayed for many years.</p> + +<p>Back in Paris as lecturer at the Normal School, and +at the Sorbonne, he determined to attack indifference +to the fine arts. His thesis had a title of arresting +words for that time, “The Origins of the Modern +Lyrical Drama.” While in Rome he had written a +few plays that were not made public, <i>Orsino</i>, <i>Caligula</i>, +and <i>Niobe</i>. He was eager to increase interest in music +at the Normal School and elsewhere. He attended +musical festivals at Bonn and Strasburg and began +that series of biographies published later as <i>Musicians +of Former Days</i>, <i>Musicians of Today</i>, <i>Beethoven</i>, +<i>Handel</i>, and other volumes. He married the daughter +of Michael Bréal, the philologist, at whose home he +met noted men of letters, science, and art. His wife +was cultured and sympathetic with his aspirations to +extend knowledge of music and art among the people. +He rebelled against educational restrictions, as well as +political reactions; in such moods he wrote plays such +as <i>Danton</i>, <i>Fourteenth of July</i>, <i>Triumph of Reason</i>, +and <i>Saint Louis</i>, a heroic legend. He urged popularizing +of the theatre and lamented the dominance of “the +aristocratic theatre.” Some of the articles which he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>wrote at different times on this theme have been translated +by Barrett H. Clark as <i>The People’s Theatre</i> +(New York, 1918). He looked to the theatre as +beneficial to the people in three ways: “(1) as a +source of joy; (2) as a source of energy; (3) as a +source of guiding light to the intelligence.”</p> + +<p>Before Rolland had really “found himself” in +literature, the Dreyfus case racked his sensitive soul. +In almost all his later writings there are references, +direct or implied, to this “welter of feeling” which divided +families and shattered friendships. At the time +of the trial he wrote, “He who can see injustice without +trying to combat it, is neither entirely an artist nor +entirely a man.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_104_104" href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> He wrote a dramatic parable, +<i>Les Loups</i> (<i>Wolves</i>) under the pseudonym of “Saint +Just,” in which he lifted “the problem from the +realm of time into that of the eternal.” As the +political strife became more personal and bitter, Rolland +retired from public attention and devoted himself +to writing lives of artists like <i>Michael Angelo</i> and <i>Millet</i> +and musicians. He contributed the first chapters +of <i>Jean-Christophe</i> to the literary magazine, <i>Cahiers +de la Quinzaine</i>, known to students <i>only</i> for many +years. In two small rooms on the fifth floor of a +Parisian house, above the boulevard Montparnasse, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>Rolland wrote and read, seeing a few friends, taking +walks, and playing the piano for recreation. Outwardly, +he was serene; inwardly, he was seething with +indignation at the falsities and hypocrisy of life, at the +disdain shown for spiritual values, at “the world dying +of asphyxia in its prudent and vile egoism,” as he expressed +it in <i>Jean-Christophe</i>.</p> + +<p>Slowly, without any aids of publicity, the real value +of <i>Jean-Christophe</i> became apparent to critics and discriminating +readers, as the last volumes appeared in +the magazine. German journalists called attention to +its unique merits. Paul Seippel, the Swiss writer, related +the life and earlier work of Rolland. In June, +1913, Rolland was given the Grand Prix of the +French Academy. Translation of <i>Jean-Christophe</i> +was made into English by Gilbert Cannan and critics +awakened. The same year Rolland republished some +of the plays written in his student days, under the title, +<i>Les tragedies de la foi</i>; by examples of such heroes as +“Saint Louis” and “Aërt,” he would inspire the people +of the twentieth century to a new idealism. His play, +<i>Wolves</i>, has been staged in Yiddish in New York, has +been translated into English by Barrett H. Clark, and +has been performed at the University of Minnesota.</p> + +<p>In his epic story of a musician and his associates, +Rolland was a preacher of aspiration and harmony to +the whole world, in spite of localized atmosphere. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>He recalled the words of Goethe, “National literature +now means very little; the epoch of world literature is +at hand”; and he urged, “Let us make Goethe’s +prophecy a living reality.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_105_105" href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> His hero was to have +a long, circuitous journey in his search for expression +of his aspirations; he was to meet many kinds of people +and races; he was to have some of the tragic experiences +of musicians of real life, Beethoven, Wagner, and +Hugo Wolf; he was to keep aloft the banner of idealism, +of faith in humanity. Like the author, he was to +be victimized by the hard realities of life and disillusionments. +The book was to have many themes and +varied notes but was to be blended, at the last, into +a perfect symphony. The preludes were written in +1895-1897; the last chords were played in October, +1912. Parts were written in France and Italy; others, +in Switzerland and England.</p> + +<p>No work of fiction of such prodigious length, totaling +more than 1550 pages, in the three-volume +edition translated by Gilbert Cannan, could be written +without many lapses, many passages of uneven merit. +Some of the characters are vital and haunting to the +memory, like Olivier, Grazia, Antoinette, Sabine, +Jacqueline, Emmanuel, Dr. Braun, besides the hero; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>others flit across the pages and are forgotten. Condensation +of some chapters would add to their effectiveness +but the author’s discursive, intuitive comments +make a valuable asset of the book. It may be reread +in parts with enjoyment, just as a musical program, for +an evening, has selected movements in a fugue or a symphony. +When it was suggested to Rolland that he +seemed to show enmity towards Germany, by some of +the reproaches of her false standards, his reply was, +“I am not in the least an enemy of Germany”; in proof, +he cited that he had rated soundly as many faults in +France, in Volume V, as he had in Germany in Volume +IV. He contended that Germany had creative energy +and moral vigor but that she was “sick” in this twentieth +century, just as France was diseased and needed +to be purged to restore her noble qualities. Heroic +souls are found in both countries but the people, as a +whole, fail to interpret each other aright. Unless such +understanding can be established in <i>friendship</i>, war will +sunder the nations—such was the prophetic message +of <i>Jean-Christophe</i> which was fulfilled two years +later. His book was intended as a “common heritage +for all” of Europe.</p> + +<p>Time will fix the exact status of this epic novel and +its lasting influence upon international thought. It +may be classified as allegory, romance, psychological +study, or idealistic vision; it has sincerity, inspiration, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>and imaginative intensity. The author’s statement +that he always thought of the life of his hero as analogous +to a river, is significant; he sustains the imagery +from the first Dawn, Morning, Youth, and Revolt in +Germany to the very end of the journey “across the +border,” to the final act where “Saint Christopher” +hears the roar of the torrent but also, the “tranquil +voice of the Child” as the Angelus sounds forth The +New Day. Gilbert Cannan has compared the phases +of life, explored by <i>Jean-Christophe</i>, to the tortuous +channel of an uncharted river. His judgment that this +novel is “the first great book of the twentieth century,” +is more stable than the prophecy of other critics that +would leave out the word “first.” It has many passages +of artistic perfection, like “Antoinette,” “The +House,” and “The New Dawn.” With emotional +fervor the author, in the closing volume, speaks his +message to the future, apostrophizing the young men; +“You men of today, march over us, trample us under +your feet, and press onward. Be ye greater and +happier than we.... Life is a succession of deaths +and resurrections. We must die, Christophe, to be +born again.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_106_106" href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></p> + +<p>And since the award, what has Romain Rolland +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>written? <i>Colas Breugnon</i>, the tale of a Burgundian +artist, translated in 1919 by Katherine Miller, is less +intense, much more free and diverting than his long +novel. It was a work of relaxation for the author +during the summer months in Switzerland, 1913. He +had recently visited his birth town and modeled the +hero, in part, from a resident, a wood carver there, +“an artist of the vanished type.” He has his struggles +and defeats but he never loses his optimism. The +next year the war began, with its devastating, soul-searing +effects upon Romain Rolland. He had seen +its black shadow and had forewarned the people in +<i>Jean-Christophe</i> but the actual conflict overwhelmed +his spirit. Like Olivier, in his story (whom he resembles +in many ways), he had feared such a war from +boyhood; it had been “a nightmare to him; it had +poisoned his childhood days.” He was at Vevey, on +Lake Geneva, when the war broke out and he decided +to stay there; he longed for France but he could not +fight without blighting his soul. He would suffer as +a pacifist, loving his country, rather than yield to hate. +He did secretarial work for the Red Cross and assisted +in welfare measures of many kinds. When the Nobel +prize money came, he gave it “to the mitigation of +the miseries of Europe.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_107_107" href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> He wrote some of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>papers that were collected in <i>Above the Battle</i>; his +friendly letter to Hauptmann, appealing for amity, and +the German’s reply, are given here. In spite of the +aggressive tone of the German’s note, Rolland refused +to believe that the ideals of human brotherhood had +been destroyed; they were suffering eclipse temporarily +but would relive in “The New Dawn.” To Woodrow +Wilson, in the later months of the war, Rolland made +an appeal to “be the arbiter of the free peoples.” On +the day of the armistice he issued a manifesto, +<i>L’Humanité</i>, a call to “brain workers,” comrades all +through the world, to reconstruct a fraternal union. +The play, <i>The Montespan</i>, translated by Helena van +Brugh de Kay, is called a “sequel to <i>Above the Battle</i>.” +He had written, during these days of seclusion and +thought, his study and appreciation of <i>Mahatma +Gandhi: the Man Who Became One with the Universal +Being</i> (translated by Catherine D. Groth), which has +been quoted in the previous chapter upon Rabindranath +Tagore.</p> + +<p>As relaxation, he wrote <i>Liluli</i>, a comedy with the +“goddess of illusion” as its heroine. There are some +lines of satire and some of burlesque, as the combatants +wrestle. It was symbolic of France during the +war years, as <i>he</i> viewed his country, scorning Truth +and heaping up ruins of past greatness. This has been +illustrated with thirty-two wood engravings by Frans +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>Masereel (New York, 1920). While Rolland was +exercising his ironical wit upon this picture of war, he +was writing <i>Clerambault: the Story of an Independent +Spirit during the War</i>, a sad portrayal of a pacifist. +This has been translated by Katherine Miller (New +York, 1921). It is a dissertation more than a story, +a presentation of the author’s own sentiments, with +much philosophy about life and conflicts. The man, +Clerambault, passes through strange spiritual experiences. +The early scenes of his rural home life, +peaceful and happy, are contrasted with his fanaticism +when he reaches Paris and urges his son, Maxime, to +enter the army; then come reactions, after the death +of the son and his own probings of conscience. The +author interprets the tale as a tragedy for the man and +his wife, but a triumph of freedom for his soul. +There are many autobiographical touches in this psychological +story.</p> + +<p>In 1922 there appeared in Paris, from the pen of +Rolland, the first volumes of <i>L’âme enchantée</i> which +is now appearing in English version, by Ben Ray Redman, +as <i>Annette and Sylvie: The Prelude</i> and a +second volume, <i>Summer</i>, translated by Eleanor Stimson +and Van Wyck Brooks. In his Foreword the author +tells his readers that they are starting with him upon +a new journey which will not be so long as that of +<i>Jean-Christophe</i> but will include more than one stage. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>He asks suspension of judgment until the tale is finished, +quoting the old adage, “La fin loue la vie, et le +soir le jour.” He expresses the domination that his +characters gain over him—Jean, Colas, Annette—so +that he becomes no more “than the secretary of their +thoughts.” No thesis nor theory is in this story but +it is another life history, struggling to find Truth, to +reach harmony of spirit amid many kinds of buffetings +and joys. Two girls, half sisters, Annette and Sylvie, +afford him scope for sharp antitheses in character-drawing. +Annette is a girl of fine health and brain, +educated at the Sorbonne. She had adored her father +but, because of some letters which she found after his +death, she realizes his infidelities to her mother and understands +his secretive smiles. She locates her half +sister who never bore his name—Sylvie, pretty, uneducated, +capricious, gay, unmoral. The deep passions of +Annette, her reserves and independence, her repugnance +to any “possessiveness” on the part of her lover, +Roger Brissot, and his family, lead to a scene of erotic +realism. This is followed by words of the author’s +own creed, his Search for Truth: “I am not one of +those who fear the fatigues of the road.... I am +seeking.... I am convinced that it is possible to +love one’s child, loyally perform one’s domestic task, +and still keep enough of oneself, as one ought to—for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>the most essential thing ... one’s soul.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_108_108" href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> The second +volume reveals the material and spiritual conflicts +of Annette, as a mother and teacher, and Sylvie’s experiences +in marriage and business.</p> + +<p>In his latest book, as in his earlier plays and fiction, +M. Rolland has revealed that idealism which, in his +philosophy, means harmony and freedom, of both +aspiration and action. His form is often careless and +sometimes crude; but it has high lights of great beauty +and true art. In his own life he has waged many +battles that have left scars upon his sensitive temperament +and fine soul. They have never shattered his +spiritual creed, his faith in humanity. He has written +ardently in behalf of international friendship and intellectual +unity. In the future he may be ranked as a +prophet as well as a scholar, a seer as well as a writer. +Amid the turmoil of his generation he has been a force, +making for peace; he has held high the banner of +world-fellowship and sounded the challenge against +racial jealousies.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101_101" href="#FNanchor_101_101" class="label">[101]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1915.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102_102" href="#FNanchor_102_102" class="label">[102]</a> <i>Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work</i> by Stefan Zweig, translated +by Eden and Cedar Paul, New York, 1921. By permission of +Thomas Seltzer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103_103" href="#FNanchor_103_103" class="label">[103]</a> See his <i>Tolstoy</i>, translated by Bernard Miall, London and New +York, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104_104" href="#FNanchor_104_104" class="label">[104]</a> <i>Century Magazine</i>, August, 1913, article on Rolland by Alvan +V. Sanborn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105_105" href="#FNanchor_105_105" class="label">[105]</a> <i>Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work</i> by Stefan Zweig, translated +by Eden and Cedar Paul, New York, 1915. By permission of +Thomas Seltzer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106_106" href="#FNanchor_106_106" class="label">[106]</a> <i>Jean-Christophe</i> by Romain Rolland, translated by Gilbert Cannan, +Vol. III, p. 348, New York and London, 1913. By permission of +Henry Holt & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107_107" href="#FNanchor_107_107" class="label">[107]</a> <i>Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work</i> by Stefan Zweig, New +York, 1921, p. 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108_108" href="#FNanchor_108_108" class="label">[108]</a> <i>Annette and Sylvie: Being Volume One of the Soul Enchanted</i> +by Romain Rolland, translated from the French by Ben Ray Redman, +New York, 1925. By permission of Henry Holt & Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII"> + CHAPTER XII + <br> + A GROUP OF WINNERS—NOVELISTS AND + POETS + </h2> +</div> + + +<p> + <span class="smcap">Heidenstam of Sweden</span> (1916)<br> + <span class="smcap">Pontoppidan and Gjellerup of Denmark</span> (1917)<br> + <span class="smcap">Carl Spitteler of Switzerland</span> (1919) +</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1916 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Heidenstam, Verner von, born 1859: “in recognition of his +significance as spokesman of a new epoch in our literature.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_109_109" href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>“Sweden’s Laureate” is the name often given to +Verner von Heidenstam who won the prize in 1916. +By public, competitive vote of his countrymen he had +been chosen as the most popular poet before he was +accorded this world honor. He is less familiar, by +translation in English, than his compatriot who preceded +him in recognition by the Swedish Academy, +Selma Lagerlöf. His plays, novels, and poems are +gaining new appreciation through the translations in +recent years by Charles Wharton Stork, Arthur J. +Chater, and Karoline M. Knudsen. He was born of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>aristocratic family at the manor house of Olshammar +in Närke, July 6, 1859. As a boy he was never strong; +he was shy and loved to read, especially poetry and +hero stories. When he was in early adolescence, +he developed such a condition that lung-disease was +feared and he was sent to the south of Europe for a +milder climate. For eight years he was away from +Sweden, spending time in Italy, Switzerland, Greece, +Turkey, and Egypt. Some of his ancestors had been in +governmental positions in the Orient; he was lured by +the picturesqueness and freedom of these lands.</p> + +<p>His first ambition was to be a painter; for a time he +was a student of Gêrome in Paris. Critics have often +recognized this quality of the painter’s skill in his +poems, in selection of objects and colors and in reproduction +of life in Paris, in Italian carnival days, and at +Damascus. While Heidenstam was still a young man, +he fell in love with a Swiss girl of the people and married +her. At an old castle of Brunegg, estranged for +a time from his parents, he lived in seclusion, seeing +few people except his wife and August Strindberg who +had become deeply interested in the young poet. Already +he had decided that literature, not art, must be +his profession. He wrote many poems that were gathered +later as <i>Pilgrimages and Wander-Years</i>. In +<i>Thoughts in Loneliness</i> one may read expressions of +his moods of longing for home, mingled with resentment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>against injustice. “Childhood Scenes” is an example, +beginning:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ve longed for home these eight long years, I know.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I long in sleep as well as through the day!</div> + <div class="verse indent4">I long for home!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I seek where’er I go, not men-folk, but the fields</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Where I would stray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The stones where as a child I used to play.⁠<a id="FNanchor_110_110" href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>There are sundry references to his mother; a line that +will arouse sympathy reads,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She prayed my life might have a worthy goal!⁠<a id="FNanchor_111_111" href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In the poem, “Fame,” he is melancholy and laments:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">You seek for fame but I would choose another</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And greater blessing:</div> + <div class="verse indent2">So to be forgotten</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That none should hear my name;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No, not my mother.⁠<a id="FNanchor_112_112" href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The death of his father, in 1887, called him back to +Sweden; here, with intervals of travel, has been his +residence through his mature life. A volume of his +<i>Poems</i>, following those of <i>Pilgrimages and Wander-Years</i>, +increased his reputation among his countrymen. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>They were of diverse types; some were emotional like +“A Man’s Last Word to a Woman”; others were +scenic and dramatic narratives, like “The Forest of +Tiveden” and “The Burial of Gustaf Fröding.” The +lyrical quality in his songs adapts them to community +singing; his “Sweden” is most familiar and has been +compared by Mr. Stork to John Masefield’s “August, +1914.” The vibrant quality is strong; the patriotism +is appealing:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh, Sweden, Sweden, Sweden, native Land!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our earthly home, the haven of our longing!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The cow-bells ring where heroes used to stand,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose deeds are song, but still with hand in hand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To swear the eternal troth thy sons are thronging!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In later poems, as well as prose essays, Heidenstam has +shown ardent liberalism and a spirit of brotherhood. +“Singers in the Steeple” emphasizes</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Not joy to the rich, to the poor men care;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our toil and our pleasure alike we share.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><i>Poems</i>, published in 1902, contain appeals for +democracy and universal suffrage, in the verses, +“Fellow-Citizens,” and other lines. Like his predecessor, +Björnson, he is both national and universal in his +idealism. With honor and love he has written the +elegy of Björnson as “Norway’s Father,” with the +closing lines:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet the soul of the people deep within</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Still breathes the eternal brother-song,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">We stand and gaze at the sunset long</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And grieve for thee as one of our kin.⁠<a id="FNanchor_113_113" href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Verner von Heidenstam must be included on the +lists of novelists as well as poets. In 1889 he published +his first romance, <i>Endymion</i>, a new treatment +of an old theme. With a painter’s glow of fancy he +sought to depict, through a love story of moderate interest, +the atmosphere of the East, when it is clouded +by restraints of Western civilization. He had registered +rebellion against the growth of naturalism in fiction: +in <i>Pepita’s Wedding</i> (1890) he urged idealism, +and search for inner truth. The term, “imaginative +realist,” which has been used to classify Heidenstam, +is especially applicable to the fantastic, emotional tale, +<i>Hans Alienus</i> (1892). As writer of fiction, however, +the name of Heidenstam will always be linked most +closely with <i>The Charles Men</i> (<i>Karolinern</i>)—stories +of Charles XII and his wars—a series of prose-poems +depicting Swedish heroism, written with fervor and +artistic finish. A translation by Charles Wharton +Stork, with introduction by Fredrik Böök, has been +added to the <i>Scandinavian Classics</i> (American-Scandinavian +Foundation, New York, 1920). Among +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>the best of several dramatic tales are “French Mons,” +“The Fortified House,” and “Captured.” Like Rolland, +Heidenstam is a pacifist yet he has written a +vigorous tribute to this “King who lived his whole +life in the field and died in a trench,” the man who +was a genius in war but, like his heroic men, gentle as +well as brave, with lofty visions.</p> + +<p>Other romances followed this major work, <i>The +Charles Men</i>—tales and folklore, sagas and modern +applications in <i>Saint George and the Dragon</i>, <i>Saint +Briggitta’s Pilgrimage</i>, and <i>Forest Murmurs</i>. In fiction +and essays the writer has attacked naturalism that +“lets the cellar air escape through the house.” Some +of his significant essays are collected as <i>Classicism and +Teutonism</i>. It is unfortunate that so few of his works +are adequately rendered into English. He has contributed +to liberal and reform journals. In 1900, +marrying for a third time, he bought a home near +Vadstena, the place of his childhood, and with his +wife, a woman of broad culture and social charm, he +has exerted a wide influence upon Swedish life. In +1912 he was elected a member of the Swedish Academy +which honored itself, as well as him, by the award +of the Nobel prize four years later, after his candidacy +had been urged throughout Scandinavia and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Among his verses had been delightful “Cradle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>Songs”; he had written, also, juvenile stories. He +was asked by the Swedish educational authorities to +write a Reader for school use. He calls this “a work +of love.” Without the originality and glamour of Miss +Lagerlöf’s books, <i>The Wonderful Adventures of Nils</i> +and its sequel, this Reader contains some absorbing +tales of heroism, and poems and scenes of descriptive +merit. For older youths and adults he has embodied +poetic legends with modern teachings in two plays, +translated into English by Karoline M. Knudsen, <i>The +Soothsayer</i> and <i>The Birth of God</i> (Boston, 1919, +1920). The first play is located upon “An Arcadian +Plain” with Apollo, the Soothsayer, the Fates, and +Erigone, wife of the Soothsayer, as leading characters. +There are sentences of subtle humor about “a man in +love,” and more serious counsel of Apollo, with +modern meaning:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent4">Son of dust!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou didst try to serve two gods; therefore, thy power became thy doom!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><i>The Birth of God</i> is founded upon Egyptian mythology, +with symbolism in the words of Dyskolus, an Ancient, +to a modern merchant, A Stranger, comparing +“the altar-fire and the sacred hymn,” when “divine +destiny had not been forgotten,” with humanity of less +pure standards.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></p> + +<p><i>The Tree of the Folkungs</i>, translated from the Swedish +into English by Arthur J. Chater (New York, +1925), is a romance, mingling history, sagas, fantasy, +pageantry, action, and modern interpretation of some +of the deeds and ideals of the Vikings. It has been +compared to <i>Peer Gynt</i>. Two distinctive parts of the +book, welded into one story, are “Folke Filbyter” and +“The Bellbo Heritage.” The elemental character +that gives title to the first part is Earl Birger, sacrificing +to all gods in adversity and pulling down all altars +in days of prosperity. He opposes the dynasty +of the Folkungs but he ends his days in squalor and +piteous craving for the love denied him by his sons +and grandsons, a lesson to moderns of the futility of +material miserliness. The second section of the +strange, impressive tale deals with the fortunes of the +Folkungs two hundred years later and the conflict between +two brothers and their differing standards, King +Valdemar and Junker Magnus. The latter considers +his older brother a “good-hearted, sunny-eyed fool,” +compared with his own masterful ways. This legendary +romance-pageant has scenes of dramatic power—the +battle between Valdemar and Magnus, the love of +the minstrel for an outcast maiden, and many customs +of historical and imaginative past. It is an elaborate, +well constructed revelation of Heidenstam’s imaginative +insight and vigor, united with his skill in interpreting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span>the <i>past</i>, in history and sagas, to the problems +of the <i>present hour</i>. He is, in truth, “the herald +of a new epoch in our literature.”</p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Henrik Pontoppidan</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1917 has been awarded one half to:</p> + +<p>Pontoppidan, Henrik, born 1857: “for his profuse descriptions +of Danish life of today.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_114_114" href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The Swedish Academy had sprung several surprises +in the awards of the first fifteen years but they surpassed +all previous records, in 1917, when the honor +was divided between Henrik Pontoppidan and Karl +Gjellerup of Denmark. Danish writers, in general, +were less known by translation in France, Italy, England, +and America than their neighbors of Sweden +and Norway. Outstanding exceptions are Hans +Christian Andersen and Georg Brandes. The Danish +Royal Theatre was recognized in contemporary life as +an educational force; such playwrights of earlier and +later days as Holberg, Oehlenschlager, and Edward +Brandes had been studied by dramatic scholars in +many countries. Bergström’s play, <i>Karen Borneman</i>, +translated by Edwin Björkman, is discussed by Barrett +H. Clark in <i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_115_115" href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>Another play by Bergström, <i>Thora van Deken</i> +(1915) was a dramatization of a novel by Pontoppidan.</p> + +<p>An interesting note, regarding the reaction to this +joint award of 1917, is found in the <i>American-Scandinavian +Review</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_116_116" href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> The first comment is upon +the ages of the recipients—both were past sixty—“another +veteran medal” for writers whose productivity +is past. In addition, says the editorial writer, +“Neither has mastering genius that would entitle him +to the prize.” Pontoppidan is the better known; he +stands for progress that will not forget tradition. +Vilhelm Anderson, literary historian, has said of Pontoppidan’s +writings, “Modern Denmark could be reconstructed +entire from his books.” The family had +scholars, among them a bishop, Eric Pontoppidan, of +the seventeenth century, who published the oldest +Danish grammar in Latin.</p> + +<p>Henrik Pontoppidan was born at Frederica in Jutland, +in 1857. His grandfather and father had been +clergymen. While he was a schoolboy the family +moved to Randers where he remained until he went +to Copenhagen, to the Polytechnic Institute, to study +engineering. He made a visit to Switzerland where +he had his first love affair and wrote his early sketches. +In 1881, in Denmark, appeared <i>Clipped Wings</i>, a collection +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>of stories of which “The Church Ship” excels +in imagination and dramatic concentration, the mystical +mingling with the realistic. In 1891 he lived for +a time at Ostby but a few years later, after his second +marriage, he moved to Copenhagen where he has been +a noted leader in educational and literary life, a friend +of Brandes and an adviser of the younger dramatists +and novelists. He has been called an imitator of +Ibsen; an echo of some of the melancholic effects of +<i>Brand</i> and <i>Ghosts</i> may be seen in Pontoppidan’s tales +but he is distinctive in his methods of portrayal. He +is criticized sometimes as narrow and localized, without +spiritual vision.</p> + +<p>A trilogy of novels (1892-1916) presents scenes +and characters in the rural life of Denmark. The +first book, <i>The Promised Land</i>, is depressing, strongly +realistic in its hero, Emanuel, called by some critics +“a prose Brand.” It is a tale of disillusionment, a +revelation of the struggle of idealists in this world +of material ambitions. It is written with care—three +years was devoted to it—and the note of sincerity is +marked. The second novel, <i>Lucky Peter</i>, to which the +author devoted four years, is partly subjective. The +hero, like his author, was son of a clergyman and +studied as an engineer. <i>The Kingdom of the Dead</i>, +written during the war years, reflects such influences +with a stronger tone of patriotism than is dominant in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>the author’s other tales; it is loosely constructed but +it gives clear glimpses of Copenhagen, both in city +streets and outlying districts. <i>The Apothecary’s +Daughter</i> has been translated by G. Nielsen (London, +1890).</p> + +<p>In an English edition of Pontoppidan’s stories, <i>The +Promised Land</i> and <i>Emanuel, or Children of the Soil</i>, +translated by Mrs. Edgar Lucas, with several illustrations +by Nelly Erichsen (London, 1896), the illustrator +explains the author’s purpose in the chapters of +<i>The Evolution of the Danish Peasant</i>. He has chosen +a disturbing period in educational and religious life +after the Danish peasant was transformed from a +slave to a citizen, by the act of 1849. Political parties, +“The National-Liberal” and “Friends of the Peasants,” +were formed and high schools were established. +Then, by a revision of 1866, the liberties of the peasants +were again threatened and despair settled on their +minds. In two remote villages, Veilby and Skibberup, +prototypes of the places where the author had lived +and taught for a time and knew the people, he has +portrayed their customs and revolts in a vivid, descriptive +style.</p> + +<p>In some of his short stories, like “Eagle’s Flight” +and “Mimosas,” Pontoppidan reveals himself at his +best as narrator. He is deeply interested in educational +progress for his people; he urges freedom from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>hypocrisy and weak compromises. Idealist in his +aspirations and photographer of Danish life in town +and country, he is an author whose writings will be +appreciated as the years add to their interpretations +and translations.</p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Karl Gjellerup</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1917 has been awarded, one half to:</p> + +<p>Gjellerup, Karl, born 1857, died October 13, 1919: “for his +many-sided, rich, and inspired writing with high ideals.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_117_117" href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Like Pontoppidan, Karl Adolf Gjellerup was the +son of a clergyman. He was born at Roholte in 1857. +To please his father he studied for the ministry, and +took examinations in theology, but he was not willing +to accept any parish. He was deeply interested in +“modernist doctrines” and became a disciple of Darwin, +Georg Brandes, and Spencer. Later he recanted +from some of these teachings and became less radical +and more historical in his studies. He delighted in the +Eddas and had a natural flair for literature even before +he became a professional writer. He has lived much +of his life in Dresden, where his popularity seems to +be greater than in his home country. Said the commentator +on Gjellerup, in the <i>American-Scandinavian +Review</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_118_118" href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> after the prize was divided between him and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>Pontoppidan in 1917, “his appointment has been received +with marked coolness in Scandinavia.”</p> + +<p>As a writer, Gjellerup has traveled far afield for +his subjects. He has written books on art and music; +he is an ardent Wagnerian and has studied many +aspects of this influence, as his writings testify. He +has tried his hand at plays in which he sought to +reconcile the modern spirit of Christianity with the +Greek love of beauty. It is not a new theme—nor is +there much distinction in his treatment. He has translated, +in modern Danish language, several tales of the +Eddas and old Norse sagas. By translation into +English he is known especially by two stories, <i>The +Pilgrim Kamanita</i> and <i>Minna</i>; other novels, typical +of his style are <i>An Idealist</i> and <i>Pastor Mons</i>, with +satirical and photographic passages.</p> + +<p><i>The Pilgrim Kamanita</i>, translated by John E. Logie +(London and New York, 1912), is subtitled <i>A Legendary +Romance</i>. It is laid on the banks of the Gunga, +when Lord Buddha visits the “City of Five Hills”; +there is graphic description of locusts and coral trees +and blossoms in the grove of Krishna. The text is +from Byron’s <i>Don Juan</i>—“This narrative is not +meant for narration”—an indication of its imaginative +quality. The opening pages are brilliant with +colorful passages, “billowy clouds of purest gold,” +blossoming gardens and terraces and “a long line of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>rocky eminences, rivaling in colour the topaz, amethyst, +and the opal, were resolved into an enamel of incomparable +beauty at this City of the Five Hills.” +Kamanita was the son of a merchant in the land of +Avanti, among the mountains. He was rich, well +educated, could sing and draw, could color crystals +and “tell whence any jewel came.” At twenty he was +sent on an embassy of business to King Udena in +Kosambi. Here began his “Pilgrimage” in love and +memories that form the trail of this story. Mysticism, +and esoteric philosophy are <i>mixed</i>, rather than +<i>blended</i>, with realism.</p> + +<p><i>Minna</i>, the novel translated into English by C. L. +Nielsen (London, 1913), has Dresden for its background. +There are songs from Wagner and music +by Chopin and Beethoven, interspersed with the tale +of Minna and her tragic life, after her <i>mariage de +convenance</i>. In a note, dated Dresden, August, 1912, +the author confesses, “I have often felt a homesick +feeling for the Danish <i>sund</i>.” He adds that he has +been reading Thomas Moore’s <i>Irish Melodies</i>, bequeathed +to him by his deceased friend, Harald Fenger. +This love story, in manuscript form, was entrusted +to Gjellerup before Fenger died in London, after he +had lost “Minna” and developed a fatal illness of the +chest. With these memories before him, he narrates +this romance of the hero who comes into the country, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>near the Elbe and, crossing the ferry, meets a pretty +governess and Lisbeth, whose chief distinction was +that of wearing a veil, “at a time when veils are out of +fashion.” The character of Minna is revealed largely +through letters with emotional tones. There are disillusionments +as well as emotional joys in this tale, +justifying the motto chosen from Moore’s line, “To +live with them is far less sweet than to remember +them.”</p> + +<p>The Nobel honor to Gjellerup was appreciated much +in Germany because his influence upon art and literature +had been strong, especially in Dresden. He interpreted, +to Danish readers, certain factors in German +life and philosophy. While his Danish compatriots +recognize his scholarly work, his literary insight, and +subtle wit, they do not rank him as a genius nor +essentially as a Danish writer. Some leaders in that +country would have much preferred to be represented, +among Nobel prize winners, by a versatile, world-honored +writer like Georg Brandes, or a playwright +like Bergström (before his death in 1914) or a poet +like Drachmann (before his death in 1908) or a writer +of localized scenes but broad vision like J. V. Jensen. +There are elements of poetic insight and analytical skill +in the romances by Gjellerup; and translation into English +will increase appreciation of his literary influence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span></p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Carl Spitteler</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1919 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Spitteler, Carl, Switzerland, born 1845; died 1925; “having +especially in mind his mighty epic <i>Olympischen Frühling</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_119_119" href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Another small country and an author, little known +outside France and Germany and his own land, was +the choice for the award of 1919—Carl Spitteler of +Switzerland. There was no prize given in 1918, in +literature. In spite of the fact that Nietzsche had +written of Spitteler as “perhaps the most subtle æsthetic +writer of Germany,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_120_120" href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> his name was not familiar +to international readers. Born in Liestal, a +canton of Basel in 1845, he was nearly seventy-five +years old. His work had been idealistic in trend, thus +fulfilling one condition of the prize; his epic for which +he was honored had been completed fourteen years before—<i>Olympian +Spring</i>. He had suffered from disappointments +and lack of appreciation by critics until +his later years. He had never lost his zeal for literature +and desire to promulgate ideals of truth and +freedom.</p> + +<p>He was fortunate in opportunities for travel and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>study as a youth. His father was in the post-office +service at Basel and later was Secretary of the Treasury +at Berne. While at Basel University, Carl Spitteler +came under two influences of lasting results on his +life and writing—Wilhelm Wackernagel, the German +philologist, and Jacob Burckhardt, the historian of the +Italian Renaissance. He loved music, especially +Beethoven, and showed taste for art. Later he went +to the Universities of Zürich and Heidelberg, to study +history and jurisprudence. He took courses in theology—thinking +he might be a minister—but decided +wisely that his bent was towards philosophy and literature. +His ambition was to become an epic poet; he +essayed to write <i>John of Abyssinia</i>, <i>Atlantis</i>, <i>Theseus +and Heracles</i> but he pushed aside these pioneer efforts +as puerile. For eight years he was tutor in Russia, in +the family of a Russian general. While there, he +was writing slowly the poem that he had planned in +student days at Heidelberg, <i>Prometheus and Epimetheus</i>. +It was issued first under the pseudonym of +“Felix Tandem” and ten years later with his own signature.⁠<a id="FNanchor_121_121" href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> +His Prometheus is “an exalted soul,” suffering +rather than proving untrue to his spiritual ideals. By +contrast is his brother, Epimetheus, receiving Pandora’s +gifts and material honors but losing his soul +until he recalls Prometheus from exile, to drive away +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>“the powers of evil.” There is depth of philosophy +mingled with modern ideas in this poem of grace and +beauty. He was charged with imitating Nietzsche’s +<i>Also sprach Zarathustra</i> so he wrote a pamphlet, +<i>My Relations with Nietzsche</i>, emphasizing his ignorance +of the latter’s work when he wrote his poem on +Prometheus.</p> + +<p>He continued his teaching in Switzerland at Berne +and at Neuenstadt, spending thirty hours a week in +the classroom; then he did some journalistic work at +Basel. In 1883 he married and soon after published +<i>Extramundana</i>, in which he told, in verse, +cosmic myths of the history of creation. A collection +of his lyrics, <i>Butterflies</i> (<i>Schmetterlinge</i>), excel in +rhythm and love of nature. In 1891, he inherited a +small fortune; from that time he was relieved from +routine teaching and writing; he went to Lucerne +where the scenic beauty increased his literary inspiration. +He experimented in various forms—a series of +essays known as <i>Laughing Truth</i> (<i>Lachende Wahrheiten</i>), +with irony and earnestness mingled, a prose +idyl, <i>Gustav</i>, and a juvenile <i>Mädchenfeinde</i>, translated +by Mme. la Vicomtesse Le Roquette-Buisson as +<i>Two Little Misogynists</i> (New York, 1922). There +are clever illustrations by A. Helene Carter. This is +an amusing tale, perhaps more appealing to adults than +to children readers by its subtle wit and modern +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>educational problems; but it is entertaining and lively. +Two boys, aged ten and nine, Gerold and Hänsli, “fine, +healthy boys,” are returning to a military school after +a vacation. If only some great event might save +them—a flood or earthquake or epidemic among the +teachers, or “a declaration of war.” Their feelings +towards the girls, Theresa and Marianelli, are natural +and amusing. There is irony in the warning given to +Gerold lest “he should think for himself,” a process +that is both popular and unpatriotic, as many people +consider.</p> + +<p>After the publication of some poems as <i>Balladen</i> in +1905, Carl Spitteler wrote <i>Imago</i>, which he declared +was “an explanation of Prometheus and Epimetheus—what +really happened.” “Prometheus shows what +a poet made of it.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_122_122" href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> Autobiography, as in many of +his books, reappears in the young man, Victor, the +poet in <i>Imago</i>; in the discussion or analysis of Frau +Doktor and German womanhood, the author has +shown the <i>provincial</i> attitude, in many conditions of +life outside Germany as well as within.</p> + +<p><i>Der olympische Frühling</i>, which is known by translation +as <i>Olympian Spring</i>, was the mature expression +of Spitteler as poet. It appeared from the press at +intervals from 1900 to 1905. It has five parts, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>with more than thirty cantos, written in iambic couplets. +Four lines, describing Apollo, from <i>Olympian +Spring</i>, have been freely translated by Thekla E. +Hodge:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Threefold is thy royal crown of fame:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast conceived it: that shows thy lofty aim.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast dared it: that tells the hero’s valor.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou hast achieved it: from thousands thou art chosen.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The poem mingles classic mythology with satire, contemporary +problems, humor and idealism. With high +praise, it has been called “The Divine Comedy of the +New Century.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_123_123" href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> It has been compared to Shelley’s +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i>, to Keats’ <i>Endymion</i> and other +epical poems. Ananke, ruler of the universe, is a +vitalized character from mythology who imprisons the +gods in Erebus. He permits them to start on a +journey to visit the distant world while Moira, daughter +of Ananke, gives springtime and peace to the world. +Their joy is turned into discord and suffering as they +come near;—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And from the yawning cleft the echoes’ thunder rolled,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For aye no spot on earth but witnessed grief untold.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The blue flower of Memory has a vital part to play. +The angels chant their message of hope, their assurance +of “a coming morn” when cocks will crow at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>advent of a Saviour, and Part I ends in a climax of +idealism. The “Winning of Hera,” Queen of the +Amazons, and the choice of Herakles as wanderer on +the earth, suffering any tortures for the sake of Truth, +are larger themes in Part II. Marguerite Münsterberg +has made an interpretive translation of parts of +this epic poem which won for its author the Nobel +prize.⁠<a id="FNanchor_124_124" href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> There is drollery and satire, as in the plan +of Aphrodite to lead mankind away like children, and +the frustration by rain and burlesque features. The +poetic climaxes are vigorous and the complete work is +masterly and epical.</p> + +<p>Spitteler is often ranked as representative of German +literature in Switzerland, in company with +Gottfried Keller, Conrad Meyer, author of <i>The +Monk’s Marriage</i>, and Joseph Victor Widman, author +of <i>Saints and Beasts</i>. He showed influences, in prose +and verse, of Goethe and Schiller but he had originality +in his approach to his subject and its treatment. +He endured much loneliness of spirit from neglect of +his literary messages and from political bitterness. +During the war he urged the neutrality of German +Switzerland and so lost favor with the people who had +stimulated and encouraged him; in return he gained +popularity in France and was given the greeting of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>French Academy when he was seventy years old. +His poems vary much in tones and measures; there are +musical <i>Bell Songs</i> (<i>Glockenlieder</i>, 1906) and light, +joyful <i>Butterflies</i> of earlier years. In the later <i>Ballads</i> +he often struck a note against commercialism, with +a ring of robust idealism in behalf of spiritual values, +and denunciation of those “Prudes to the bone”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">For what of old our fathers virtues made</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They’ve chaffered for in markets or betrayed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The death of Carl Spitteler at Lucerne, in the current +year, revived interest in his life and writings, and +evoked recognition of his influence towards revival of +the best in classicism, and his aspirations for freedom +and sincerity in modern life and letters.</p> + +<p>Among many tributes to the work of this poet a few +may be cited from the monograph, compiled by Eugen +Diederichs Verlag in Jena, translated for this book by +Thekla E. Hodge. Michael Georg Conrad, often compared +with Spitteler as a leading exponent of modern +German literature, writes: “The marked superiority +of Spitteler over his contemporaries in the realm of +<i>belles-lettres</i> is due to his brilliant creative genius, and +the rare combination of deep feeling and keen humor.” +Widman, another author-critic, writes of <i>Prometheus</i>: +“In this poem he blends poetry with religion +(mythology) and thought (philosophy). Unfortunately, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>we can draw no comparison for nothing like +it is found in literature.” The same critic is enthusiastic +about the poems, <i>Butterflies</i> (<i>Schmetterlinge</i>). +“The fate of these wondrous little creatures, whose +transformation has ever brought to the human mind +a mysterious and touching symbolism, was wrought by +the poet’s touch into scenes of dramatic tragedy, and +irresistible charm.”</p> + +<p>Several commentators have stressed the qualities of +vigor and grotesqueness, combined with idyllic poetry +in the epics and lyrics by Spitteler. One of the most +sincere tributes was that of Romain Rolland, written +soon after he had received the Nobel prize and before +that honor was given to Carl Spitteler. He regrets +that it was not bestowed upon the Swiss writer and +adds: “Spitteler is to my mind the greatest European +poet, the only one today who approaches the most +famous names of the past.... Strange blindness of +the world to pass by the living flame of the genius of +the most inspired poet without even divining its splendour.” +The award of 1919 was the fulfilment of +Rolland’s desire.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109_109" href="#FNanchor_109_109" class="label">[109]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1916.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110_110" href="#FNanchor_110_110" class="label">[110]</a> <i>Sweden’s Laureate: Selected Poems</i> translated by Charles Wharton +Stork, New Haven, 1919. By permission of Yale University Press.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111_111" href="#FNanchor_111_111" class="label">[111]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, “Mother.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112_112" href="#FNanchor_112_112" class="label">[112]</a> By permission of Yale University Press.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_113_113" href="#FNanchor_113_113" class="label">[113]</a> <i>Sweden’s Laureate: Selected Poems</i>, translated by Charles +Wharton Stork, New Haven, 1919. By permission of Yale University +Press.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_114_114" href="#FNanchor_114_114" class="label">[114]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1917.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_115_115" href="#FNanchor_115_115" class="label">[115]</a> New York, 1925, p. 27.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_116_116" href="#FNanchor_116_116" class="label">[116]</a> Vol. VI, p. 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_117_117" href="#FNanchor_117_117" class="label">[117]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1917.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_118_118" href="#FNanchor_118_118" class="label">[118]</a> Vol. VI, 1918.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_119_119" href="#FNanchor_119_119" class="label">[119]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1918.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_120_120" href="#FNanchor_120_120" class="label">[120]</a> <i>Carl Spitteler</i>; monograph compiled by Eugen Diederichs Verlag +in Jena.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_121_121" href="#FNanchor_121_121" class="label">[121]</a> <i>Studies from Ten Literatures</i> by Ernest Boyd, New York, 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_122_122" href="#FNanchor_122_122" class="label">[122]</a> <i>The German Classics</i>, edited by Kuno Francke, New York, 1914, +<i>Carl Spitteler: Life and Works</i>, Vol. XIV, pp. 493-515.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_123_123" href="#FNanchor_123_123" class="label">[123]</a> <i>Contemporary Review</i>, January, 1920, article by J. G. Robertson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_124_124" href="#FNanchor_124_124" class="label">[124]</a> <i>The German Classics</i>, edited by Kuno Francke, New York, 1914, +Vol. XIV, p. 515.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII"> + CHAPTER XIII + <br> + KNUT HAMSUN AND HIS NOVELS OF + NORWEGIAN LIFE + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1920 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Hamsun, Knut, Norway, born 1859: “for his monumental +work, <i>The Growth of the Soil</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_125_125" href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was characteristic of a type of journalism in the +United States that the announcement of the Nobel +award in literature for 1920, to Knut Hamsun, should +have been featured in a digest of news thus: “The +Horse-Car Conductor Who Wins the Nobel Prize.” +A passing incident in the life of this author—a few +months of service on street cars in Chicago—but they +loom large in minds that cherish trivialities. His +works in fiction and drama, more than twenty-five in +number, have been translated into a score of dialects; +he is an outstanding and unique figure in the literary +life of to-day; his development of personality and fame +vies in interest with the challenging quality of his +writings. Few authors have been so self-revelatory +as he has been in his plays and novels. Except for +statistical facts and side lights, to be found in other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span>sources, one can make almost a complete picture of his +background, his early struggles and revolts, his innate +poetry and growing idealism, by reading in succession +<i>Hunger</i>, <i>Mysteries</i>, <i>Pan</i>, and <i>Munken Vendt</i>, followed +by <i>Dreamers</i>, <i>Benoni</i>, <i>Children of the Age</i>, and +<i>Growth of the Soil</i>.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp52" id="i_p214" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p214.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>By courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.</i> + </blockquote> + <p>KNUT HAMSUN</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Although Knut Hamsun’s parents were of peasant +stock, the boy, born August 4, 1860, at Lom, in Gudbrandsdalen, +in eastern Norway, inherited strains of +artistic craftsmanship. His grandfather was a worker +in metals (sometimes called a blacksmith) but fortunes +were low and, when the lad was four years old, the +family moved from the Gudbrandsdalen mountain +valley to the Lofoden Islands, Nordland. Here, amid +wild, awesome scenery and simple fisherfolk with sordid +tasks, the youth grew to young manhood. For a +time he lived with an uncle who was a preacher, of +the state church; he was a severe man. In his short +story, “A Spook,” Hamsun recalls those days with +their floggings and work and hours of escape to the +cemetery or the woods.⁠<a id="FNanchor_126_126" href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> Before he could satisfy +his cravings for an education, he was apprenticed to a +shoemaker in Bodö, in Nordland. He managed to +get his first writings published; in 1878 appeared the +serious poem, that showed appreciation of the glowing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>colors and wild aspects of nature, <i>Meeting Again</i>, and +the story <i>Björger</i> with the pseudonym, Knud Pederson +Hamsund. While there were interesting bits of +autobiography, this initial fiction was imitative of +Björnson and has not been revived by its author among +his books.</p> + +<p>Restless and unwilling to spend his days at Bodö +as a shoemaker, he worked for a short while as coal +heaver, and later as road-maker and school-teacher +and sheriff’s assistant. Then, like so many Scandinavian +youths, he decided to emigrate to America. +Some of these earlier experiences are recalled in his +novels, <i>A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings</i> and +<i>Under the Autumn Star</i> (in the English edition united +as <i>Wanderers</i>). In the United States he drifted from +one occupation to another and covered a wide range of +pursuits as street-car conductor, farm laborer, clerk in +grocery store and lecturer. He cherished hopes of +literary chances in this country but the lack of them, +and the misfortunes that came upon him, made him +bitter for a time, in retrospect. Those who recalled +him on the Halstead street-car line in Chicago, and +later on a cable line, affirmed that he had “a perpetual +stare into the horizon,” that he was “out-at-elbows” +and had small volumes of classic poets sticking out of +his pockets.⁠<a id="FNanchor_127_127" href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> They add that he would forget to ring +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>the bell for passengers or would fall over their feet +in his reverie. One is skeptical of such detailed +memories of famous men. In the summer of 1885, he +was back in Christiania, doing some journalistic work +and lecturing. Hanna Arstrup Larsen in her authoritative +study of Knut Hamsun⁠<a id="FNanchor_128_128" href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> says that he had been +at the University of Christiania, before he went to +America; but that he found he was a misfit and went +back to his “old life on the road.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_129_129" href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></p> + +<p>In 1886, says Professor Josef Wiehr,⁠<a id="FNanchor_130_130" href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> he returned +to the United States as correspondent for <i>Current +Events</i> (<i>Verdens Gang</i>) but he was obliged to undertake +manual work to get a living wage; for a time he +was with a Russian fishing vessel off the Newfoundland +banks. For about a year he was secretary to Kristoffer +Janson, a Norwegian clergyman in Minneapolis; +he was then twenty-eight years old, and had been working +on a farm in North Dakota. He wanted a chance +to lecture in Minneapolis on literary topics but his +ambitions were unrealized and he left America with +some bitter feelings and the manuscript of his satirical +book, <i>The Spiritual Life of Modern America</i> (or +<i>Intellectual Life in Modern America</i>), sometimes entitled +<i>Of American Culture</i>. In a copy of this book, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>owned by Edwin Björkman, Hamsun wrote an inscription, +dated 1905, thus, “A youthful work. It has +ceased to represent my opinion of America.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_131_131" href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> He +scoffs at “American patriotism, engendered by means +of tinfifes”; he asserts, “There is an enormous gap in +American liberty, a chasm which is kept open by the +thick-headed democracy”; he finds no cultural life but +coarse materialism and “prudishness” and “self-satisfied +ignorance.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_132_132" href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> The book justifies a critic’s +comment that it is “a masterpiece of distorted criticism.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_133_133" href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> +His short story, “Woman’s Victory,” in +the collection, <i>Struggling Life</i>, is based on his experiences +in Chicago; in the Preface, he tells of his +life as car conductor. “Zacchæus,” in the collection, +<i>Brushwood</i> (1903), is reminiscent of the days upon +the North Dakota farm.</p> + +<p>In Copenhagen, on his return from America, he enlisted +the interest of Edward Brandes, then editor of +a daily newspaper there. Through his influence, place +was found for the manuscript of <i>Hunger Sult</i> in a +Copenhagen magazine, <i>New Soil</i>, in 1888, to appear +anonymously; two years later it came out as a book, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>with the author’s name on the title-page. It was +immature and subjective, but it gripped readers everywhere +by its sincerity and whimsicality. Miss Larsen +makes a true criticism of this book when she says it is +“without beginning and end and without a plot but it +has a series of climaxes.” Antithetical to such passages +of poetic and dramatic power there are pages of +naturalism that cause a revulsion of emotion and seem +to some readers an insult to taste. It is absolutely true +and relentless; perhaps, as Professor Wiehr suggests, +“By the production of this work, Hamsun sought to +free his mind from terrible memories of the past that +were haunting him” (p. 13). Two years later the +same mixture of poetic high lights and crass realism +characterized <i>Mysteries</i>. Johan Nagel is the restless +hero who falls in love with Dagny Kielland, daughter +of the pastor, and meets with tragic experiences and +suicide. Like his author, “Nagel is at odds with life” +and finds peace only in nature. Like Hamsun he tries +vainly to adapt himself to conventions of society and +becomes embittered. “The Hamsun ego,” as Miss +Larsen calls the <i>motif</i> of these earlier tales, recurs +in <i>Editor Lynge</i>, the drama, <i>Sunset</i>, and <i>Pan</i> (1894). +Lieutenant Glahn, the hunter in this last book, is happy +in his hut and outdoors but is proudly unhappy in contact +with humanity; the tale ends in tragedy. Edvarda, +the woman of this story, is erotic and capricious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>to the point of disgust yet she has a pathetic element +in her nature.</p> + +<p><i>Victoria</i> shows an advance away from the “Hamsun +ego” of revolt and naturalism towards that of poetry: +Johannes, the hero, the miller’s son, is in harmony with +nature; even loss in love cannot blight his soul. +There are sentences of poetic diction in this novel and +in <i>Munken Vendt</i> (1902), the dramatic poem which +embodies the character of a lovable, simple vagabond. +One recalls the words of Edwin Björkman, in the +Introduction to his translation of <i>Hunger</i>; “The artist +and the vagabond seem equally to have been in the +blood of Hamsun from the very start.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_134_134" href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> Before he +attained to the second type of novel—the less subjective +and more idealistic group—(if idealism may be +so expanded in meaning) Hamsun wrote a trilogy of +plays, beginning with <i>At the Gates of the Kingdom</i> +(1895) with Kareno, a philosophical student and +writer, as hero, and a wife of sexual domination. The +author’s tenets about life and government are voiced +by Kareno in this drama and <i>Life’s Play</i>, ten years +later in setting; the third in the cycle, <i>Sunset</i> (1898) +shows Kareno at fifty, full of scientific doubts and +reactions from earlier aspirations for liberty and +truth. The author indulges his satire against professional +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>“moralists” in these plays; sometimes, he +indulges, also, his unvarnished frankness of sensual +portrayals, and his lack of deference for old age. +The play, <i>In the Grip of Life</i>, was translated by +Graham and Tristan Rawson and issued in 1924 +(Knopf). The women in his plays are, generally, +animalistic, or erotic, lacking diversity in types.</p> + +<p>With the appearance of <i>Children of the Age</i> (or +<i>Children of the Times</i>) in 1909, followed by <i>Segelfoss +Town</i> and <i>Growth of the Soil</i>, the reader of persistent +interest in Hamsun realized that the author had +orientated himself, that he was “finding his place” in +literature. He was still defying society, “the group,” +still disclaiming belief in democracy, but he had gained +“a social vision.” In method characteristic of many +novelists, he has chosen a family, with strong racial +traits, the family of Willatz Holmsen, for the expression +of his sociological ideas. The despotic, +anxious Willatz III, a retired Lieutenant, is a character +that lingers in memory; he is vitally real in his +relations with his wife, of higher social rank, and +with his son, the musicianly boy; he is dramatic and +pathetic in his defiance of Tobias Holmengraa, the industrial +“king” from South America. The last days +of stubborn pride and loneliness are scenes of artistic +fiction. <i>Segelfoss Town</i>, written before <i>The Growth +of the Soil</i>, but translated afterwards by J. S. Scott +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>(Knopf, 1925), continues the story of this family and +the departure of Holmengraa, after a financial collapse, +leaving behind his daughter, Mariane, half +Mexican in blood, who marries the commercial “leader +of the small town. Segelfoss Town has been called a +‘Norwegian Main Street.’” There is much irony and +reiterated sordidness in the tale. The telegraph +operator, Baardsen, is a daring, strong character.</p> + +<p>In the Introduction to <i>Dreamers</i>, W. W. Worster +(New York, 1922) calls <i>The Growth of the Soil</i> +Hamsun’s “greatest triumph.” It is the <i>one</i> book thus +far appearing in American edition, that seems to win +wide reading. It is localized in setting, objective in +theme, and universal in human appeal. Isac (or Isak) +is a convincing character of elemental type. He symbolizes +man, when face to face with nature. Inger is +a coarse Lapp woman in her physical nature yet she +seeks expression for finer feelings, even as she strangles +the third baby girl that would bear, through life, the +mother’s curse of a hair lip. “Back to the soil!” is +the message of this masterpiece of Norwegian fiction. +It has a large group of Norwegian characters, and a +challenging tone regarding many moral issues, but it +maintains artistic unity.</p> + +<p>That Knut Hamsun has grown steadily in literary +skill, that he has written novels of vigor and photographic +effects, cannot be denied. That he has a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>philosophical attitude towards humanity and the driving +forces behind society (especially as applied to Norway), +is also evident. His self-education, his persistence, +and his assimilated judgment, together with +caustic wit and grotesque humor, are other qualities +that must be accounted to his credit. On the other +hand, he is often slothful and diffuse in structure and +offensive to æsthetic minds because of his stress of +sexual impulses and his coarseness. He does not condone +immorality but he seems indifferent to its existence. +In his personal convictions, however, he +realizes the need of a basic morality. Says Professor +Wiehr: “It is just this absence of ‘the triumph of a +moral idea’ which will stand most in the way of any +popularity of Hamsun’s works with the great majority +of American readers.” Other explanations of Hamsun’s +attitude towards Christianity and “constructive +ideas” are given in this excellent study by Professor +Wiehr.⁠<a id="FNanchor_135_135" href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> He thinks that his countrymen, and “all +backward nations,” are in a much better position to +follow his advice than the millions that populate the +countries leading the world in industries. Some +critics affirm that Hamsun’s compatriot, Johan Boyer, +in his condensed, dramatic novels, <i>The Great Hunger</i>, +<i>The Last of the Vikings</i>, <i>A Pilgrimage</i>, and <i>The Emigrants</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>is more gifted as a novelist and shows more evidences +of idealistic vision. In his personal life, +Hamsun has revealed the traits of the wanderer, +“vagabond” if you will, combined with the deep-rooted +love of home and devotion to his countrymen in their +industrial needs and their educational struggles. He +is not an optimist but he advocates persistent work and +the preservation of spiritual freedom and courage.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_125_125" href="#FNanchor_125_125" class="label">[125]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1920.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_126_126" href="#FNanchor_126_126" class="label">[126]</a> <i>Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life</i> by +Josef Wiehr, <i>Smith College Studies in Modern Languages</i>, Vol. III, +Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 2, 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_127_127" href="#FNanchor_127_127" class="label">[127]</a> <i>Literary Digest</i> 67: 35, November 20, 1920.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_128_128" href="#FNanchor_128_128" class="label">[128]</a> <i>Knut Hamsun: A Study</i> by Hanna Arstrup Larsen, Knopf, +New York, 1922.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_129_129" href="#FNanchor_129_129" class="label">[129]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 19.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_130_130" href="#FNanchor_130_130" class="label">[130]</a> <i>Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life</i>, +Northampton, 1922.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_131_131" href="#FNanchor_131_131" class="label">[131]</a> Introduction to <i>Hunger</i> by Knut Hamsun, translated by Edwin +Björkman, New York, 1920. By permission of Alfred A. Knopf.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_132_132" href="#FNanchor_132_132" class="label">[132]</a> <i>Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life</i> by +Josef Wiehr, Northampton, 1922, pp. 8, 9. By permission of Prof. +Wiehr.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_133_133" href="#FNanchor_133_133" class="label">[133]</a> Introduction to <i>Hunger</i>, translated by Edwin Björkman.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_134_134" href="#FNanchor_134_134" class="label">[134]</a> <i>Hunger</i>, translated by George Egerton, New York, 1920. By +permission of Alfred A. Knopf.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_135_135" href="#FNanchor_135_135" class="label">[135]</a> <i>Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life</i> by +Josef Wiehr, Northampton, 1922.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV"> + CHAPTER XIV + <br> + ANATOLE FRANCE—VERSATILE STYLIST + IN FICTION AND ESSAYS + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1921 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Anatole France (Thibault, Jacques Anatole), Paris, born +1844; died 1924: “in recognition of his splendid activity as an +author,—an activity marked by noble style, large-hearted humanity, +charm and French <i>esprit</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_136_136" href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p224" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p224.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><i>Copyright, 1925, by J. B. Lippincott Company.</i> <i>Photograph by Choumoff, Paris</i></p> + <p> + ANATOLE FRANCE</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>When Anatole France, who had been the Nobel prize +winner of 1921, died in the autumn of 1924, there was +scarcely a journal of standing in any country that did +not summarize his influence upon letters and life in +France and other nations. Distinctly Parisian in +traits and expression, this writer was broadly international +in his analysis of humanity, in his genial +mockery of life, in his dreamy idealism which coexisted +with a ruthless realism. He had lived the full span +of life—and <i>lived</i> it to the end of his eighty years. +He had written in moods of biting satire and emotional +intensity; he had found themes in history, current +topics, and the future. As he neared the close of his +life, the emphasis was more upon the genial, kindly aspects +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>of humanity; his later literary expressions were +memories of his boyhood and youth, the completion of +that cycle of intuitive memories that began with <i>My +Friend’s Book</i> (1885) and <i>Pierre Nozière</i>, and ended +with <i>Little Pierre</i> and <i>The Bloom of Life</i> (1922).</p> + +<p>Between these volumes of imaginative and reminiscent +delights, which form a better biography of his +mind and spirit than has otherwise been written, +Anatole France produced such diverse literary types, +such books of ironic and cynical flavor as <i>The Red +Lily</i>, <i>Thaïs</i>, <i>The Revolt of the Angels</i>, <i>The Amethyst +Ring</i>, <i>At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque</i>, <i>Crainquebille</i>, +<i>The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife</i>, <i>The +Elm Tree on the Mall</i>, <i>Penguin Island</i>, <i>The Gods +Are Athirst</i>, <i>The Life of Jeanne d’Arc</i>, <i>The Human +Comedy</i>, and volumes of critical essays and poems. +To the books of more reminiscent flavor, with wistful +idealism, he was indebted, especially, for the honor +of the Nobel prize. These had already won the +tributes—and critical estimates—of readers of European +countries, of Canada, United States and South +America. Few writers have had such diverse judgments +passed upon them; in many cases, the temperamental +traits of the critic influence his reactions to this +author; in other instances, most effusive tributes, like +those by James Lewis May and Paul Gsell, of recent +years (1924), have brought natural reactions in more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>unvarnished truth, tinged with wit and naturalism, like +the biography by Jean-Jacques Brousson: <i>Anatole +France Himself</i> which has been called facetiously +<i>Anatole France in Bed-Slippers</i> (the French title reads +<i>Anatole France en pantouffles</i>, 1925). Mr. May has +written as a friend and warm admirer; Paul Gsell, as +a disciple; M. Brousson, as private secretary and fearless +narrator.</p> + +<p>It might be said that Anatole France was <i>born</i> into +the inheritance of books in 1844, for his father, +François Noël Thibault, was a bookseller of repute +throughout Paris and its environs. Son of a shoemaker +in Anjou, this elder Thibault had taught himself +to read and write while he had been in military +service as a young man. At his bookshops in the Quai +Malaquais and Quai Voltaire gathered scholars and +authors, iconoclasts in politics and letters and religion; +the shopkeeper was a Royalist and a fervent Catholic. +In the character of Dr. Nozière, in <i>Pierre Nozière</i>, +his son “has taken away the bookshop,” as he confesses, +but he has revealed many traits of his father’s +character. In the Epilogue to <i>The Bloom of Life</i> +are other memories that may be “capricious,” as he +admits, but are none the less true “records” of his +childhood. Here his father’s lack of business instincts +is suggested as elsewhere—he would often prefer to +<i>read</i> his books rather than to <i>sell</i> them. The influence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>of these boyhood days in this bookshop, with contact +directly with thinkers and writers, with wits and critics, +must have been vital and permeating in the later development +of Anatole France as psychologist and +stylist.</p> + +<p>In his last hours, we are told, this famous writer +who had been “a genial mocker at life,” an epicurean +and scoffer, a scholar of wide culture, called upon the +name of his mother. She had been the first, and one +of the most significant factors in his life-development. +There are passages of less deferential tone about her in +<i>Anatole France Himself: a Boswellian Record</i>, by Jean-Jacques +Brousson (Philadelphia, 1925). She was of +good Flemish family, with unfailing <i>esprit</i> and optimism, +practical and able to “attend to the gears of +household management that got loose sometimes,” with +an absent-minded father. She was, however, a rare +story-teller and devoted to her boy with the unusual +gifts which she alone, in his boyhood, could foresee +and encourage. How happy he was at home is revealed +in many chapters of his books—not alone those +of acknowledged reminiscence but others like <i>The +Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard</i> and an occasional essay +<i>On Life and Letters</i>. By contrast with the joys of +home—the delicate table linen and decanters, the +“tranquil faces,” the easy talk—he disliked the classrooms +and the restrictions of school life, declaring, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>“Ah, Home is a famous school.” A sense of humor +and a keen interest in humanity made the life at the +Collège Stanislas endurable but he loved solitude; +he resented the gibes of instructors and students, and +he stole away to the quays along the Seine at the hour +of noon recess to eat his luncheon—or to forget to +eat it—and returned too late for the afternoon session +and his chance to recite.</p> + +<p>It was his mother’s faith and intuition that refused +to be severe with him, even when the professor’s report +of his school work was “progress nil—conduct bad,” +even when his father accepted the verdict of M. Dubois, +the professor, that the boy would never accomplish +anything in arts or sciences. Then his mother +whispered words that he never forgot: “Be a writer, +my son; you have brains and you will make the envious +hold their tongues.” If his mother was the first vital +influence in making her son a world-famous writer, +the second was the city of Paris that he loved, studied +and photographed on his memory from boyhood to old +age. The parks and avenues, the Louvre and the +Trocadéro, the sidewalk cafés and the bookshops +beyond beautiful Notre-Dame, the vivacious men and +women, the workers on the streets and the children +in the playgrounds, the stately palaces and the tiny +rooms above a publishing shop—all these aspects of +Paris form a panoramic picture in his books.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span></p> + +<p>In 1868, when Anatole France was an unknown, +dreamy, book-browsing young man of twenty-four, +there appeared an <i>Etude</i> of Alfred de Vigny which was +<i>his</i> tribute to the poet who was “the exemplar of a +beautiful life, which gave beautiful work to the world.” +The author was known as one of a group of young +men who gathered in the rue de Condé to discuss +poetry and other forms of writing. Two years later +he was serving in the army, trying to forget the shells +that dropped in front of him by reading Vergil or +playing his flute.⁠<a id="FNanchor_137_137" href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> In the years that followed he wrote +political satires, prefaces, read manuscripts for the +publisher Lemerre, collaborated in Larousse’s dictionary +and did other “odds and ends” of an editorial +kind.</p> + +<p>After the Franco-Prussian War, Lemerre published +the small book of verse to which Anatole France had +devoted his leisure and zest, <i>Poèmes après</i>. In spite +of some stanzas of lyrical beauty they attracted little +attention. Better known is <i>The Bride of Corinth</i> that +appeared three years later and revealed the author’s +keen analysis of paganism and early Christianity. It +is translated with other plays and poems by Wilfrid +Jackson and Emilia Jackson, 1920. For a time he +was assistant to Leconte de Lisle in the Senate Library.⁠<a id="FNanchor_138_138" href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>As a witty conversationalist and brilliant +companion, he was a favorite in the salons of Catulle +Mendes and Mme. Nina de Callias, the would-be poet. +At the home of M. de Bonnières, where gathered actors, +writers, and musicians, Anatole France was always +welcomed. In 1881 appeared the book which +registered the beginning of his popular acclaim, <i>The +Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard</i>; one may say that it is <i>the +book</i> by which, during the last forty years, the author +has been familiar to international readers, old and +young. It is a simple tale, sentimental, without much +plot but with two marked qualities of lasting appeal—sincerity +and charm. Ten years later he laughed at its +continued popularity, especially the claim that it was +“a masterpiece,” saying “it was a masterpiece of platitudinousness,” +adding that he wrote it for a prize and +won it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_139_139" href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p> + +<p>Predictions of future fame were expressed in reviews +of this book and, four years later, the public responded +to <i>My Friend’s Book</i>, the first of the cycle of +youthful memories, vignettes of life which reveal the +author’s poetic reveries and friendly humanity. They +differ from <i>The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard</i> as the +author gives here photographic pictures of his boyhood, +adolescence, and young manhood while in Sylvestre +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>Bonnard, the aged, lovable book-collector and +Academician, he gives an imaginative picture of what +the author <i>may be</i>. He is lonely and dominated by +his cat, Hamilcar, and his housekeeper, cherishing the +romantic memories of Clementine, and is urged by +these sentiments to his sacrifice for her daughter. A +few of his boyhood memories, however, are incorporated +into the early chapters of this book—the craving +for a doll, the silhouette of the uncle, Captain Victor, +and other pages of wistfulness and humor. Lafcadio +Hearn, in his Introduction to the translation of this +classic <i>roman</i>, says words that may be applied to the +cycle of memories (for they all have hall-marks of the +author’s superb paradoxical genius). “If by Realism +we mean Truth, which alone gives value to any study of +human nature, we have in Anatole France a very dainty +realist;—if by Romanticism we understand that unconscious +tendency of the artist to elevate truth itself +beyond the range of the familiar, and into the emotional +realm of aspiration, then Anatole France is at +times a romantic.... It is because of his far rarer +power to deal with what is older than any art, and +withal more young, and incomparably more precious: +the beauty of what is beautiful in human emotion, that +this story will live.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_140_140" href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span></p> + +<p>After 1886 the weekly “Causerie,” which Anatole +France contributed <i>On Life and Letters</i> to the Paris +<i>Temps</i>, increased his literary fame and established his +rank as critic. Here appeared such diverse, stimulating +judgments upon writers of the day, as Maupassant +and Dumas, Balzac and Marie Bashkirtseff, +François Coppée (compared with Sully-Prudhomme +and Frédéric Plessis), Renan and George Sand; among +topics of more general interest were “Prince Bismarck,” +“The Young Girl of the Past and the Young +Girl of the Present,” and “Virtue in France.” Four +volumes of these essays, <i>On Life and Letters</i>, have +been translated into English. It was nine years after +<i>The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard</i> that another book +appeared to rivet attention upon this industrious, progressive +author. He once declared that he wrote the +earlier book “to please the public” but that he wrote +the later, <i>Thaïs</i>, to please himself. In development +of skill in fiction it is superior; it has been well described +as “an epic of eternal struggle between the +spirit and the senses.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_141_141" href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> The author had passed +through some emotional crises since he wrote his earlier +books of reminiscence, notably <i>My Friend’s Book</i>, +with its reflections of his happy home life and the whimsical +domestic discussions between the wife of his youth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>and himself about their daughter, Susanne. He had +traveled and become imbued with sensuous beauty of +southern lands; he had been annoyed, to the verge of +anger, by reactionists, represented in <i>Thaïs</i> by Palaemon, +“who would banish joy and beauty from the +world.” He made Nicias, often a skeptic in his surface +sentiments, his spokesman. The poet and the +realist are commingled in this tale of disillusionment, +even as they are found in the later, more vehement +books of the novelist-satirist, <i>The Red Lily</i>, <i>At the +Sign of the Reine Pédauque</i> (considered by many +critics his masterwork), <i>The Amethyst Ring</i>, <i>The +Gods Are Athirst</i>, <i>The Wicker-Work Woman</i>, <i>Penguin +Island</i>, <i>The Revolt of the Angels</i>, and shorter +stories like <i>Crainquebille</i>, <i>The White Stone</i>, <i>The +Seven Wives of Bluebeard</i>, and <i>Tales from a Mother +of Pearl Casket.</i></p> + +<p>Fresh memories of the Dreyfus Case were awakened +by his poignant satire in <i>Penguin Island</i> with its elements +of burlesque. The author’s historical research, +which bore ripe fruits in <i>The Life of Jeanne d’Arc</i>, +is revealed in <i>The Gods Are Athirst</i>, with sardonic +wit and dramatic passages between Evariste, his +mother, and his mistress. Julie, his beautiful sister, +appeals to the reader’s sympathy. The ex-farmer of +taxes, whose livelihood is now made by cutting out +cardboard dancing dolls, is a haunting character. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>voices, perhaps, the author’s attitude to life at this +period—that is was full of disillusionment and defeats +but was not worth the cost of one’s anxiety to the point +of despair. In some of these satiric tales of life, notably +<i>The Revolt of the Angels</i> when they come to +Paris and behold certain social conditions, there are +passages so naturalistic that they offend tastes of less +“sophisticated” readers. Some of the books by Anatole +France were tabooed in libraries before the award +of the Nobel prize; the year after that was given, all +of his works, without due discrimination, were “placed +on the Index” by the Roman Curia because of excess +of utterances that were communistic and anti-clerical +in tone. When he went to Stockholm to receive this +prize in person he was reported to have said, regarding +the Treaty of Versailles, “the most horrible of wars +was followed by a treaty which was not a treaty of +peace but a prolongation of the war. The downfall of +Europe is inevitable unless at long last the spirit of +reason is imported into its councils.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_142_142" href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a></p> + +<p>In contrast to these fearless words that brought him +the condemnation of French journals, he made more +urbane response to the literary honor conferred upon +him, adding to his personal gratitude, tribute to the +Swedish Academy: “Its decisions possess an international +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>value, and I rejoice in it, for it is a confirmation +of what is, for me, the principal lesson of the war, +the beneficent influence exerted by intellectual intercourse +with other countries.” There had been rumors, +well attested, that the young men of France had repudiated +Anatole France as a leader, seeking other exponents +of philosophy and echoing the adverse comments +upon him by Maurice Barrès and Henri Massis, +editor of <i>La Revue Universelle</i>. They contended that +he failed to give them a constructive philosophy in the +hour of need. He never claimed to be a philosopher; +he was an observer of life, a commentator, a poet-dreamer, +a lover of justice, an ironist, a stylist rather +than a thinker. He was not widely read in other +languages and philosophies as were Georg Brandes or +Sainte-Beuve. He bore some relationship to Brotteaux +of his story, <i>The Gods Are Athirst</i>, who was +condemned to death because of his lack of reverence +for great political revolutionists. Anatole France +saw the world as a subject for keen wit that is often +sardonic but seldom bitter. He found life sadly in +contrast with some of his visions as a youth but he did +not despair of a future of more equality of conditions, +more tolerance in creeds. Paul Gsell, one of his hero-worshipers, +in his records of conferences at the Villa +Saïd, the Paris home of “the Master,” has recalled +significant thoughts uttered by him upon “The Credo +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>of a Skeptic,” “Politics in the Academy,” and other +themes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_143_143" href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p> + +<p>In his <i>Boswellian Record</i> by Jean-Jacques Brousson +(Lippincott, 1925) there are frank confessions of his +“show conversations” and his “contradictory ideas” +which caused shyness and lack of clarity of mind. He +recalls “the almond icing” which he put on his first +version of <i>The Life of Jeanne d’Arc</i>, to be “picturesque” +and to please “the sanctimonious.” These +“snap-shots” of Anatole France “en pantouffles,” in +moods of relaxation, are even less interesting than +some of the quotations of serious sort from the words +of this master of style. Two significant sentences will +be often quoted; “You become a good writer just as +you become a good joiner; by planing down your sentences.”... +“People take me for a juggler, a sophist, +a droll fellow. In reality I have passed my life twisting +dynamite into curl-papers.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_144_144" href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p> + +<p>Without question the return of Anatole France to +the spirit and mode of his earlier books, to the idealism, +combined with photographic vividness in <i>The +Bloom of Life</i>, influenced the decision of the Swedish +Academy in his favor, in 1921. He was, in his old +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>age, living again the scenes of his youth—discussing +with his schoolmate, Fontanet, “People Who Do Not +Give Enough”; playing truant from the ferule of +Monsieur Crottu whose rule “was a tissue of injustices”; +recalling “Days of Enchantment” when he +went to his first play; photographing “Monsieur Dubois, +the Quiz,” and plucky Phillipine Gobelin; and +yielding again to the spell of Vergil and the Sixth +Eclogue, with its wonder and beauty. The stinging +irony disappeared from these later pages—irony which +motivated such books (or portions of them) as <i>Histoire +contemporaine</i> and <i>The Revolt of the Angels</i> or +“A Mummer’s Tale” in <i>Histoire comique</i>.</p> + +<p>Dual personality which resides in all persons was +most marked in this writer of charm and force, this +exponent of his race, and of his age among <i>all</i> races. +“Compassionate idealism” is the phrase chosen by +James Lewis May to explain the polemical essays and +radical criticisms of governments and religions, that +are expressed or implied in many of his writings. +James Huneker calls him “a true humanist”; he thinks +he loved humanity and learning; he loved words, also, +but he was “a modern thinker, who has shed the despotism +of the positivist dogma and boasts the soul of +a chameleon.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_145_145" href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> He stresses his irony which is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>“Pagan” and his pity which is “Christian.” Sisley +Huddlestone, in <i>Those Europeans</i>, devotes a chapter +to Anatole France as “Ironist and Dreamer.” The +phrases are well chosen; the interpretation of his salient +traits is condensed but convincing: “In his irony one +constantly catches glimpses of beauty. By showing +us life as it is, though without bitterness, he indicates +life as it should be. He teaches tolerance and placidity +in an age in which even the reformers add to the confusion +by their reckless energy.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_146_146" href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_136_136" href="#FNanchor_136_136" class="label">[136]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1921.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_137_137" href="#FNanchor_137_137" class="label">[137]</a> <i>Anatole France: the Man and His Work</i> by James Lewis May, +London and New York, 1923, p. 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_138_138" href="#FNanchor_138_138" class="label">[138]</a> <i>Studies from Ten Literatures</i> by Ernest Boyd, New York, 1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_139_139" href="#FNanchor_139_139" class="label">[139]</a> <i>Anatole France Himself</i> by Jean-Jacques Brousson, Philadelphia, +1925.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_140_140" href="#FNanchor_140_140" class="label">[140]</a> London, Bodley Head, Crown Edition, 1924, pp. v and ix. By +permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_141_141" href="#FNanchor_141_141" class="label">[141]</a> <i>Anatole France: the Man and His Work</i> by James Lewis May, +London, 1924, p. 120. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_142_142" href="#FNanchor_142_142" class="label">[142]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 108. By permission of Dodd, Mead & Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_143_143" href="#FNanchor_143_143" class="label">[143]</a> <i>The Opinions of Anatole France</i>, recorded by Paul Gsell; in American +edition, <i>The Conversations</i>, etc., New York, 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_144_144" href="#FNanchor_144_144" class="label">[144]</a> <i>Anatole France Himself: a Boswellian Record</i>, by Jean-Jacques +Brousson, pp. 95, 347, Philadelphia, 1925. By permission of J. B. +Lippincott Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_145_145" href="#FNanchor_145_145" class="label">[145]</a> <i>Egoists</i> by James Huneker, New York, 1909, p. 143. By permission +of Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_146_146" href="#FNanchor_146_146" class="label">[146]</a> <i>Those Europeans</i> by Sisley Huddlestone, New York, 1924. By permission +of G. P. Putnam’s Sons.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV"> + CHAPTER XV + <br> + TWO SPANISH DRAMATISTS—ECHEGARAY + (1904), BENAVENTE (1922) + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1904 was awarded one half to:</p> + +<p>Echegaray, José, member of the Spanish Academy, born +1833, died September 14, 1916: “in appreciation of his +comprehensive and intellectual authorship which, in an independent +and original way, has brought to life again the great +traditions of the Spanish drama.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_147_147" href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Until recent years, Spanish literature has been less +accessible by translation than that of many other European +countries. Fiction by Galdós, Valera, Valdes, +and Ibañez have given to English and American readers +somewhat adequate impressions of the realistic power +and poetic undertones of some of these latter-day novelists. +In drama, three of Galdós’ plays, nine by +Martínez-Sierra, a dozen more by Echegaray, and +several by Benavente have been rendered into excellent +English by such gifted translators as John Garrett +Underhill, James Graham, Charles Nirdlinger, Hannah +Lynch, Ruth Lansing, and others.⁠<a id="FNanchor_148_148" href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> In the awards +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>to Spanish dramatists of the Nobel prize in 1904 and +1922, two generations with their differing standards +and literary methods, have been represented—Echegaray +and Benavente. In German literature, as exampled +by Heyse and Hauptmann, and in Polish fiction, +with its representatives, Sienkiewicz and Reymont, one +finds the same recurrent recognition in successive generations.</p> + +<p>José Echegaray, who shared the honor of 1904 with +Frédéric Mistral, was born in Madrid in 1833; that +city was his home until his death in 1916, except for +periods of travel or retirement because of political +friction. As Sully-Prudhomme found his first impulse +towards science, so Echegaray studied mathematics +“ferociously, ravenously.” He made researches, +also, in geology and philosophy. Under +the republican government he held public offices, like +Ministers of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, +President of the Council of Education, and Senator +for Life. After teaching at the National Technical +School, where he had been educated, he became +identified with the University of Madrid.</p> + +<p>At first the writing of plays seems to have been a +pastime for this mathematician and politician. <i>The +Wife of the Avenger</i>, <i>At the Hilt of the Sword</i>, and +<i>The Gladiator of Ravenna</i>, which appeared between +1874 and 1876, were popular in Spain but are little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>known by English translation. In 1877 he wrote a +drama that has been much discussed, since it was +translated as <i>Madman or Saint</i> by Ruth Lansing +(Poet Lore, Boston, 1912); another translation by +Hannah Lynch (Boston, 1895) bore the title, <i>Folly +or Saintliness</i>. Still another translation by Mary Serrano +is used in <i>Library of the World’s Best Literature</i>. +It is a strong play emotionally, with that touch of idealism +and romance which were traits of the author, +blended with his keen analysis. Don Lorenzo, a +wealthy man of Madrid, finds that he has been deceived +regarding his parentage; he is not the son of a rich +mother of noble family, as he and the world supposed, +but the child of his nurse, Juana, who dies after she +tells him the tale. No longer young, with his daughter +engaged to a son of the Duchess of Almonte, he is determined +to tell the truth and so defy his family. A +specialist in mental disease is called with the physician +to examine him; at the same time he sends for a +notary to record his renunciation of his name and +estate. His final monologue is dramatic, beginning +with the lines: “What! is a man to be declared +mad because he is resolved to do his duty. It cannot +be! Humanity is neither so blind nor so bad +as that!”</p> + +<p>These earlier plays by Echegaray, which called +forth such ardent praise from his countrymen, who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>would rank him with Calderon and Lope de Vega of +the past centuries, are trivial in literary value beside +two of later years, <i>The Great Galeoto</i> and <i>The Son +of Don Juan</i>. Eleven years separated these two +strong dramas (1881-1892) during which the author +continued to write plays, some with historical +setting like <i>Harold the Norman</i> and <i>Lysander the +Bandit</i>; others were of romantic type, some tragedies +and more comedies. In general, he sought to revive +romantic drama, to proclaim the sharp conflicts in life +between passion and duty. His motives were often +more pronounced than his characterization; his men +and women were sometimes mere mechanisms, fighting +their battles for honor and truth. There was a +chivalrous note in his lines where domestic fidelity +formed the keynote of the emotional struggle. +Soliloquy was much used by this dramatist.</p> + +<p>When <i>The Son of Don Juan</i> and <i>Mariana</i> were +translated, and linked in the memory of English +readers with <i>The Great Galeoto</i>, world-critics gave +study to this forceful Spanish dramatist who had +grown in favor during the decade from 1890 to 1900. +Two characteristics of <i>The Great Galeoto</i> were noted: +the fearless, vigorous portrayal of the evil of gossip +and resultant tragedy; the fact that the chief personage +in the play exercised occult influence and did not +appear on the stage. He is the “busybody,” who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>creates all the troublesome situations, who directs the +characters (or suggests their words) but he is not +present. Elizabeth Wallace, in an article of value in +the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, September, 1908, on “The +Spanish Drama of Today,” says: “This vanishing +hero is the cruel, careless world, hastening eagerly +to cast the first stone, and, so soon tired of the sport, +hurrying on to find some new excitement, leaving +death and destruction in its wake.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_149_149" href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> This culprit is +the city of Madrid (or society anywhere). There +are individualized characters like Theodora and Don +Julian; Don Severo, the plotter, may well be compared +to Iago.</p> + +<p>Even more virile than this romantic tragedy is <i>The +Son of Don Juan</i>; it suggests Ibsen’s <i>Ghosts</i>, both in +germ-idea and <i>dénouement</i>, although it has distinctive +merit. Echegaray borrowed the words of the +Norwegian dramatist for the lines of Lazarus, +“Mother, give me the sun!” In the Prologue the +Spanish author expands these symbolic words to +“enfold a world of ideas, an ocean of sentiments, a +hell of sorrows, a cruel lesson, a supreme warning to +society and to the family circle.” Society is, again, +at the bar of justice, as in <i>The Great Galeoto</i>; the +offense this time is lax morality of parent, and the +lunacy which falls, in retribution, on the child. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>mother of Lazarus is a convincing character. In +<i>Mariana</i> are found some of the strongest delineations +in Echegaray’s dramas, notably Clara, wife of Don +Castulo, the grotesque archeologist, and Mariana, the +widow, with riches in America, described by Clara (in +a touch of jealousy, yet appreciation) as “a widow who +is hardly a widow and is almost a child.” The latter +woman is capricious, disdainful, yet passionate in her +relations with her lover, Daniel. Melodrama enters +somewhat into the closing scenes of intrigue and excitement. +James Graham has translated both <i>Mariana</i> +and <i>The Son of Don Juan</i>.</p> + +<p>Echegaray continued to write plays, stimulated by +the recognition and the honors of 1904. When the +award was made, there was a popular demonstration +in Madrid; the king presided and presented the prize, +while speeches were made by Galdós, Valera, and +Mendenez Palayo, who had once been his bitter critic. +On this occasion Palayo said: “For thirty years +Echegaray has been the dictator, arbiter and idol +of the multitude, a position impossible to attain without +the strength of genius, which triumphs in literature +as everywhere.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_150_150" href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> He was much honored in France +and called “a second Victor Hugo.” It has not been +easy for American students to interpret the plays by +Echegaray; they fail to understand fully, especially on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>the stage, the situations and sentiments of the Spanish +dramatist. Many of the keen, brilliant lines, both +of analysis and wit, suffer in translation into English. +For Drama League readings, or group study and discussion, +his plays lend themselves to interpretation +and study. This is true, not alone the longer and +familiar dramas already noted but such short plays as +<i>Always Ridiculous</i>, translated by T. W. Gilkyson,⁠<a id="FNanchor_151_151" href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> and +<i>The Street Singer</i>, translated by John Garrett Underhill⁠<a id="FNanchor_152_152" href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> +and included in Frank Shay’s <i>25 Short Plays</i> of +international selection (New York, 1925). Irony and +wistfulness are mingled in this dramatic picture of the +little beggar-girl, Suspiros, of Augustias, the street +singer, and her lover, Pepe. Suspiros, sixteen and +pretty but sickly, speaks to Coleta, a professional beggar +of fifty years:⁠<a id="FNanchor_153_153" href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>Coleta.</i> You don’t know how to beg.</p> + +<p><i>Suspiros.</i> Yes, sir, I know how to beg; the trouble is, people +don’t know how to give. I say, “A penny for my poor mother +who is sick.” And you ought to see how sick she is! She +died two years ago. Well, I get nothing. Or else I say, “A +penny for God’s sake, for my mother who is in the hospital, in +the name of the Blessed Virgin! I have two baby brothers.” +No one gives, either.</p> + +<p><i>Coleta.</i> They don’t, eh? And how many brothers are you +going to have to-night?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p> + +<p><i>Suspiros.</i> Ay, Signor Coleta! I had two and nobody gave +me anything. Last night I tried four and I got sixpence, so +to-night I mean to have five and see what they give me, or +whether I just get the cuff from my mother.</p> + +<p><i>Coleta.</i> Just in the family, how many brothers have you, +really?</p> + +<p><i>Suspiros.</i> Really, I had two. But they died, like my +mother. Ay! they died because of the way my stepmother +treated them—as she does me—and I am dying! Listen! If +I can make two or three dollars I am going to run away to +Jativa, and live with my aunt.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Echegaray was seventy-two years old when he gained +the prize; he was already called by some critics a +“representative of the older generation.” Interest in +his plays, however, has gained rather than waned, +among critical scholars in every country, and his rank +is assured among the romantic dramatists of this +century. His seriousness, combined with keen wit and +insight, has been compared with similar traits of Tolstoy. +Both writers have emphasized the “dignity +of suffering” for the sake of spiritual freedom. This +is exampled in Echegaray’s <i>Madman or Saint</i>, already +cited. Conscientious and sincere in his work, this +Spanish dramatist has left a few plays of strong characterization +and potent message to society, a message +that has an element of idealism, flashing out amid the +grim realities of life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span></p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Jacinto Benavente</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1922 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Benavente, Jacinto, dramatic writer, Madrid, born 1866: +“for the happy way in which he has pursued the honored traditions +of the Spanish drama.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_154_154" href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Jacinto Benavente, to whom the Nobel prize was +given in 1922, was acclaimed as especially worthy by +those who sought for a representative of “the new +generation” in Spanish drama—what was known as +“the generation of 1898” which decried past methods +and urged modern themes and viewpoints. Benavente +was born in Madrid in 1866, a generation younger than +Echegaray. His father was a prominent physician +and the boy had stimulating home environment. He +studied law for a brief time but he inclined towards +writing and the theatre. He had some actual experiences +“on the road” with theatrical troupes and +with a circus, thus gaining first-hand information +about theatrical devices and the needs of both actors +and audiences. His first venture in print was as a +poet, in 1893, but the next year he published a play, +<i>Thy Brother’s House</i>. This and other immature plays +received scanty notice until, in 1896, appeared <i>In Society</i>. +Two years later <i>The Banquet of Wild Beasts</i> +focussed attention upon this daring, brilliant playwright. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>He became a leader among young professional +men in Madrid who, following the Spanish-American +War, were eager to renounce tradition and +to revolutionize society by exposing its vices and weaknesses. +They would punctuate “modernism” in +thought and expression with ideals of poetry. A summary +of this is found in <i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i> +by Barrett H. Clark (New York, 1925).</p> + +<p>Benavente is less radical than some of his literary +associates in Spain, France, and Russia. He does not +disdain “traditions,” if they ring true to life and art. +He is graceful and versatile, writing plays of manner +and characterization, satires on aristocracy and sympathetic +scenes of peasant life. He compels his +readers or spectators to <i>think</i>, if they will get stimulus +from his plays like <i>The Truth</i>, <i>Autumnal Roses</i>, <i>The +Magic of an Hour</i>, and <i>Field of Ermine</i>.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p248" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p248.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.</i> + </blockquote> + <p>JACINTO BENAVENTE</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In 1913, Benavente was elected to membership in +the Spanish Academy. He is widely quoted on educational +and political, as well as literary affairs. He has +ideals for a greater freedom than now exists in Spain +and other European countries. He has traveled +widely, seeing his plays performed and making friends +in Russia, England, South America, and the United +States. <i>The Passion Flower</i> (<i>La Malquerida</i>), the +tragedy of peasant life with colorful setting and tense +emotion, has been popular in America, as a film, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>as a play with Nance O’Neil as actress. The +Theatre Guild of New York and the Jewish Art +Theatre gave careful study to the interpretation of +<i>The Bonds of Interest</i>. As in many of his plays the +serious lesson is not stressed to interfere with the artistry. +One of his best characterizations is Nevé, +heroine of <i>El Hombrecito</i>, often compared to Ibsen’s +Nora of <i>A Doll’s House</i>. Benavente believes that the +inner meaning of a play must be revealed by the mind +or emotions of the spectator or reader. He is deeply +indebted—a debt which English and American readers +share—for the intuitive, careful translations and editing +of several series of his plays by John Garrett +Underhill (Scribner’s, New York, 1917-1925). Only +in such interpretation can one fully appreciate the +strength and fineness of character-drawing, the satirical +thesis, the fantasy and poetry blended in such plays +as <i>The Governor’s Wife</i>, <i>The Prince Who Learned +Everything out of Books</i>, <i>Saturday Night</i>, <i>The Other +Honor</i>, and <i>The Necklace of Stars</i>, with its fanciful +charm and sermonic lesson of love to one’s neighbor. +In Ernest Boyd’s <i>Studies from Ten Literatures</i> there +is a good summary of his life and work which includes +144 plays. Mr. Boyd raises the question, “Has he +been overestimated?” Possibly it is an echo of French +criticism. Valuable material is found, also, in Storm +Jameson’s <i>Modern Drama in Europe</i> and <i>A Study of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>the Modern Drama</i> by Barrett H. Clark (New York, +1925). A new intensive study is <i>Jacinto Benavente</i> +by Walter Starkie (New York, 1925).</p> + +<p><i>Expressionism</i> classifies the work of dramatists like +Benavente, Molnar, and Capek. The methods used +by the Spanish playwright to embody this principle are +to “generalize” both the action and his characters, so +that they become symbols of real life, appealing to the +subjective element in readers. He has declared that, +henceforth, he intends to write plays for publication +and not for the theatre.... “The only way in which +a play may be appreciated thoroughly is by being +read,” he says. “I have written more than a thousand +parts, yet of that number I can recall perhaps +five which I have recognized as being truly the characters +I had conceived, when they stepped upon the stage. +I have not even seen some of my plays.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_155_155" href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> This +stress upon the futility of staging plays that should +be interpreted by the reader’s own imagination and +mind, is not unlike that by Maeterlinck, already noted +in a previous chapter.</p> + +<p>Benavente not infrequently uses puppets in place of +real characters to convey his inner meanings. Sometimes +they are given real names but they are not the +<i>true</i> characters he wishes the reader to discover in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>them, as in the first scenes of <i>The Bonds of Interest</i>. +In a brief parable-play, <i>The Magic of an Hour</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_156_156" href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> he +has two symbolic characters, “A Merveilleuse” and +“An Incroyable,” two porcelain figures upon columns +that converse about life and love, books and flowers, +poetry and music. In this adroit, short comedy the +author has interwoven some thoughts that express that +peculiar idealism which is his, that contrast between +weak humanity and the craving “for something which +is not ourselves, and yet which is the breath of living.” +The nearest approach to this ideal is love, which can +transform, “by the magic of an hour,” evil, men-beasts, +cowards, “devils in crime,” into “spirits of +light, luminous with a divine wisdom through all +instincts of the beast.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_157_157" href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> In sentences of such groping +faith, such idealism of the “inner eye,” scattered +through the hundred and more plays by Jacinto Benavente, +one may establish, in a measure, his right to +the Nobel prize. With this is blended what Storm +Jameson calls his “divine sanity.” On the score of +literary achievement, he is an artist, versatile and sincere, +delicate and yet vigorous in his workmanship. +His plays vary in value for the student of drama; some +of the later titles, like <i>A Pair of Shoes</i> or <i>Doubtful +Virtue</i>, indicate the types of psychological plays among +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>Continental playwrights. In his finer, more characteristic +plays, however, there are vital expressions of +idealism. Mr. John Garrett Underhill (in a letter +to the author of this book) says, “Benavente is an +idealist of the highest type and his philosophy is best +and most explicitly stated in <i>The School of Princesses</i> +and <i>Field of Ermine</i>—service and sacrifice.”</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_147_147" href="#FNanchor_147_147" class="label">[147]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1904.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_148_148" href="#FNanchor_148_148" class="label">[148]</a> See <i>A Study of Modern Drama</i> by Barrett H. Clark, New York, +1925, and <i>Modern Drama in Europe</i> by Storm Jameson, New York, +1920.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_149_149" href="#FNanchor_149_149" class="label">[149]</a> By permission of the Atlantic Monthly Company.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_150_150" href="#FNanchor_150_150" class="label">[150]</a> <i>Review of Reviews</i>, 31: 613.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_151_151" href="#FNanchor_151_151" class="label">[151]</a> <i>Poet Lore</i>, Boston, 1908.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_152_152" href="#FNanchor_152_152" class="label">[152]</a> <i>Drama</i>, 25, 62-76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_153_153" href="#FNanchor_153_153" class="label">[153]</a> By permission of John Garrett Underhill.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_154_154" href="#FNanchor_154_154" class="label">[154]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1922.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_155_155" href="#FNanchor_155_155" class="label">[155]</a> <i>Plays</i>; fourth series, xix, edited by John Garrett Underhill. By +permission of Mr. Underhill and Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_156_156" href="#FNanchor_156_156" class="label">[156]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_157_157" href="#FNanchor_157_157" class="label">[157]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, <i>Magic of an Hour</i>, p. 125.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI"> + CHAPTER XVI + <br> + W. B. YEATS AND HIS PART IN THE + CELTIC REVIVAL + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1923 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Yeats, William Butler, born 1865: “for his consistently emotional +poetry, which in the strictest artistic form expresses a +people’s spirit.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_158_158" href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In the book, <i>Ideals in Ireland</i>, edited by Lady +Gregory (London and New York, 1901), the editor +speaks of the various contributors to this revival of +letters including George Moore, Æ (George Russell), +Douglas Hyde and W. B. Yeats as “candle-stick +makers.” Unlike the “butcher and the baker,” who +have their daily newspaper and appointed tasks that +are appreciated, this type of worker, who makes and +holds the candle, is not so well served. He is the +<i>idealist</i> who finds himself, too often, ignored or +maligned; he searches out the “dark places of the +earth”; he is the seer, seeking for truth, aspiration, +idealism. This analogy holds good for many of the +winners of the Nobel prizes—Björnson, Mistral, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>Tagore, Maeterlinck, Selma Lagerlöf, Heidenstam, +Rolland. By universal consent of readers the name +of W. B. Yeats would be added to this list, the winner +of 1923. With delicate imagery Lady Gregory has +expressed the subtle gift of this Irish poet-dramatist, +his ability to catch “the will o’ the wisp fire, miscalled +evanescent,” which is the mark of universal +idealism. In his paper, contributed to this book, +<i>Ideals in Ireland</i>, Mr. Yeats writes a brief “History +of the Literary Movement” in his country and asks +whether this revival of folklore and poetry of the soil, +which is called the Celtic revival, will become a part +of the intellectual and social development of Ireland. +These words were written in 1899; the quarter +century since then has answered the question in the +affirmative and has accorded to Mr. Yeats a large +share in this appreciation of simple beauty, love, and +chivalry. The names of Donn Byrne and Padraic +Colum, James Stephens and Winifred Letts, Lord +Dunsany and St. John Ervine, suggest some of the +poets and playwrights, “the candle-holders,” who have +followed the inspiring leadership of Lady Gregory, +John Synge, Dr. Douglas Hyde, and W. B. Yeats, +weaving their romances and poems about old ballads +and folklore of the “sage-cycles” of Irish literary history. +In this Gaelic literature are songs of battles +and of love, legends of saints and heroes, that have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>the simplicity and musical vigor of old Greek odes and +plays.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_p254" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p254.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>Photograph by Bain News Service</i> + </blockquote> + <p>WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>As dramatist, certain critics will aver, with reason, +that Synge was greater than Mr. Yeats; as researcher +among the peasantry for folk tales and forgotten +poetry, Lady Gregory and Dr. Douglas Hyde may +deserve higher rank. In the writings of Mr. Yeats, +however—lyrics, ballads, and plays—there are three +distinctive qualities: lyrical beauty, mystical strains, +blended wistfulness, and merriment. These poetic +distinctions are found in many of his ballads, notably +in “The Host of the Air,” “The Stolen Child,” and +“The Fiddler of Dooney”; they form the literary warp +of such plays as <i>The Land of Heart’s Desire</i>, <i>The +Hour-Glass</i>, and <i>On Baile’s Strand</i>. In every edition +of his plays Mr. Yeats has emphasized his indebtedness +to Lady Gregory for assistance as well as inspiration. +In his Notes to <i>Plays in Prose and Verse</i> (New York, +1924) he acknowledges the sources of “the greater +number of his stories,” as those found in Lady Gregory’s +<i>Gods and Fighting Men</i> and <i>Cuchulain of +Muirthemne</i>. He affirms that these two books have +made the legendary tales of Ireland as familiar as +are the stories of Sir Arthur and his Knights. Again, +he records his gratitude to Lady Gregory for introducing +him to firesides where he might get “the true +countenance of country life.” A third form of helpfulness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>was the skill of this friend in her mastery of +dialect and her generous work in revising the lines of +Mr. Yeats in this detail of form. His own ability to +evoke music and poetry from dreams and traditions, +and to portray the simple, domestic incidents of peasant +life, was coördinated with Lady Gregory’s aspiration +and background of folklore.</p> + +<p>The father of William Butler Yeats was a well-known +artist, John Butler Yeats, R.H.A. The son, +named for his paternal grandfather, was born at +Sandymount, Dublin, June 15, 1865. His father’s +family had been identified with the church; the grandfather +of the poet was Rector of Tullylish Down. +His mother’s father was a merchant and shipowner +at Sligo. The boy passed much time with these grandparents +in the old town by the sea. When he was of +school age, he was living with his parents in London +and went to the Godolphin School, Hammersmith. +At fifteen he returned to Dublin, attending the Erasmus +Smith School and living with his relatives at +Sligo. Memories of these early days are interwoven +with legends and fancies in <i>The Celtic Twilight</i>, and +the novel of autobiographical trend, <i>John Sherman</i>, +which appeared under the pseudonym of “Gauconagh.” +Like his hero of this tale, Yeats was homesick +in London and longed to return to the environment +of Sligo (or Ballah), to the familiar streets, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>rows of tumble-down cottages with thatched roofs, +the wharves covered with grass and the walls of the +garden where, it was said, the gardener used to see +the ghost of the former owner in the form of a rabbit.⁠<a id="FNanchor_159_159" href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> +In his poems he recalled the waves dashing upon the +cliffs, the island of Innisfree, and the distant hills at +sunset.</p> + +<p>His father hoped he would become an artist and +so continue the family profession; the youth studied +art for a brief time but he was restless and unproductive. +He preferred to browse in libraries, reading +translations—or making them—from Gaelic tales +and poems. Even more he liked to sit by the turf +fires in old Connaught and listen to the folk tales of +the peasantry. The first poem in his collection of +1906, is addressed “To Some I Have Talked With +By the Fire.” Here he saw again, in reverie, the +ghostly companions and heard the weird tales of</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent14">the dark folk who lived in souls</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When he was nineteen his first poem, “The Island of +Statues,” was published in the <i>Dublin University Review</i>. +With other young men at the University he +became interested in a Brahmin, who was in London; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>on their invitation he came to Dublin to teach his +philosophy. This yearning towards the occult was +natural for a temperament like that of Yeats. He +recalled that they fed the Brahmin a plate of rice or +an apple every day and listened to his expositions.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Katherine Tynan Hinkson, a friend of Yeats +in young manhood and later life, in her <i>Twenty-Five +Years; Reminiscences</i> has given interesting stories of +his zest in reciting his poems, even in the middle of +the night and of his dreamy, gentle nature. In 1889, +<i>The Wanderings of Oison</i> established the fame of the +young Irish lyrist. Besides the title-poem here were +“The Stolen Child” and “The Madness of King +Goll.” Influences of Tom Moore were traceable in +a poem, with lilting rhymes, like “Down by the Salley +Gardens,” pictorial and sentimental. In London, +after the poems were published, Yeats was still homesick, +although he made congenial friends at the Cheshire +Cheese—Arthur Symons, Lionel Johnson, and W. +E. Henley, who obtained for him a commission to +write some topics about Ireland for Chambers’ <i>Encyclopedia</i>. +His interest was strong in varied “cults” +and forms of symbolism which he revealed in his +poems, <i>The Wind Among the Reeds</i>, and the essays, +<i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. Yeats is both lyrist and playwright; to the +latter type of writing he owes his recognition by students +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>of the drama in every country; the two qualities +are interwoven in his plays. George Moore, +Lady Gregory, Forrest Reid, his critic and biographer, +and others have stressed his large part in the success, +as well as the inception, of the Abbey Theatre, “a +gift of immense and national importance upon Ireland.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_160_160" href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> +One would not minimize the work of Lady +Gregory and Douglas Hyde, of William Fay and +Florence Farr and Miss Horniman, who contributed +as actors, playwrights, and financial supporters. The +assurance of this theater for performance of his plays +gave incentive to the dramatic impulse of Yeats. He +created new plots and utilized folk tales interwoven +with fantasy and poetry. With the aid of Lady Gregory +and Edward Martyn, he won success with plays +like <i>The Pot of Broth</i>, <i>Cathleen ni Hoolihan</i>, <i>The +King’s Threshold</i>, <i>The Land of Heart’s Desire</i>, +<i>Deirdre</i> and <i>The Hour-Glass</i>. This last play, first in +prose, later in verse, is a masterpiece of the morality-play; +the Wise Man, faced with death within an hour, +goes desperately in search for “one person who believes +in God and Heaven,” so that he may go to Paradise. +Only in Teague, the fool, who has learned his lessons, +<i>not</i> in the schools of the Wise Men but in the <i>woods</i>, +can he find such assurance. In later versions of this +play the author introduced a strange Gaelic ballad.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span></p> + +<p>In his Notes to the volume of <i>Plays in Prose and +Verse</i>, recently reissued (New York, 1924), Mr. +Yeats gives credit for the first use of correct dialect to +Synge’s <i>Riders to the Sea</i> and Lady Gregory’s <i>Spreading +the News</i>. In this same Note he declares that +his words “never flow freely but when people speak +in verse”: it need not be rhymed verse, for some of +the finest lines in <i>Deirdre</i> and <i>The King’s Threshold</i> +are <i>rhythmical</i> but not in rhyme. In <i>The Land of +Heart’s Desire</i> the poet-playwright’s words all “flow +freely.” This is a general favorite among his plays +with professionals and amateurs upon the stage. +Forrest Reid may be extreme in praise when he calls +it “the most beautiful thing that has been done in our +time,” for it invites comparison with <i>The Sunken +Bell</i>, <i>Peter Pan</i>, and <i>The Blue Bird</i> among poetic, +fanciful plays. It lingers in memory, however, as +pictorial and dramatic, simple and beautiful in May +Eve legends and “fairy spell,” in the natural characters, +well contrasted, of Maire Bruin and her husband, +Shawn, of Father Hart and the old parents by +the fireside. That is an exquisite couplet that Maire +speaks to her sturdy husband, when the fairy calls,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O you are the great door-post of this house,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And I the red nasturtium climbing up.⁠<a id="FNanchor_161_161" href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span></p> + +<p><i>The Shadowy Waters</i> is another symbolic play, +with an undertone of idealism. Begun when Yeats +was young, it changed form often before the poet was +satisfied. Into this he has introduced varied types—the +magic harpist, the sailors, and Dectora, the restless, +craving woman. The king, Forgel, who cares not for +gold or fame, voices some tenets of the author’s creed +in the lines:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent20">All would be well</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And get into their world that to the sense</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Among substantial things; for it is dreams</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That lift us to the flowing, changing world</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That the heart longs for.⁠<a id="FNanchor_162_162" href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Yeats has ever been a dreamer-poet; he said +once that, if our dreams could all come true, there +might not be any poetry to be written; so we are told +by his biographer, Forrest Reid. Many of his dreams +are embodied in his lyrics, his plays, his short stories +and sketches, and his essays, <i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>. +<i>The Celtic Twilight</i> and <i>The Secret Rose</i> contain some +of his most fanciful, poetic tales; “The Binding of the +Hair” is an example of his highest art in this form. +Dreams of love and service are found in the volumes +of poems, like <i>The Wind Among the Reeds</i>, <i>In the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>Seven Woods</i>, <i>The Wild Swans at Coole</i>, and <i>Responsibilities</i>. +These separate collections are now appearing +in the uniform edition of his <i>Works</i> +(Macmillan). Like Keats and William Blake, Mr. +Yeats has been criticized for the lack of human contacts; +he has been accused of more interest in and +sympathy with waves and winds, with trees and fairy-lore +than with deep human emotions. His absorption +emotionally seems to be in lyrical and spiritual +rhapsodies. In reading a love lyric, like “A Poet to +His Beloved,” one feels that the dreams and the words +are more ardent than the passion of love. One of +the best interpretive essays ever written upon Shelley +is found in <i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>; these two poets +were alike in many moods, in their delicate, elusive +fancies. In the exquisite diction of some of his lines, +and the fluctuating moods that affect his themes and +modes of expression, Mr. Yeats seems to me comparable +to Thomas Bailey Aldrich and such delicate +lyrics, as “Nocturne” and “A Mood.”</p> + +<p>In these later years Mr. Yeats has carried his ideals +into more active life; he has undertaken <i>Responsibilities</i> +other than poetic expression. He has been +deeply concerned about the future of Ireland and has +been a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State. +He has become a leader in political and educational, +as well as literary, movements. Through the <i>Daily +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>Express of Dublin</i>, he entered the lists of combatants +against Bernard Shaw and his adherents who maintained +that “poetry is a criticism of life.” In expanded +thought upon this idea, in <i>Literary Ideals in +Ireland</i>, Mr. Yeats has prophesied that, as the years +pass, the function of poetry as <i>criticism</i> will be discarded; +for it, will be substituted poetry as <i>revelation</i> +of life, sometimes in tangible forms, more often in +idealistic spirit.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_158_158" href="#FNanchor_158_158" class="label">[158]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_159_159" href="#FNanchor_159_159" class="label">[159]</a> John Sherman, pp. 88-90, and <i>W. B. Yeats: a Critical Study</i> by +Forrest Reid, New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_160_160" href="#FNanchor_160_160" class="label">[160]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 151.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_161_161" href="#FNanchor_161_161" class="label">[161]</a> <i>Land of Heart’s Desire</i> by W. B. Yeats, copyright by W. B. Yeats, +New York, 1911; also in <i>Plays and Controversies</i>, New York, 1925. +By permission of the Macmillan Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_162_162" href="#FNanchor_162_162" class="label">[162]</a> <i>Poems</i> by W. B. Yeats, copyright by W. B. Yeats, New York, 1911, +1919, pp. 206, 207. By permission of the Macmillan Co.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII"> + CHAPTER XVII + <br> + HONORS TO POLISH FICTION—SIENKIEWICZ + (1905), REYMONT (1924) + </h2> +</div> + + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1905 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>Sienkiewicz, Henryk, born 1846, died November 16, 1916: +“because of his splendid merits as an author of historical +novels.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_163_163" href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp54" id="i_p264" style="max-width: 50.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_p264.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <blockquote> + <i>Copyright, 1912, by Little, Brown and Company</i> + </blockquote> + <p>HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>As has been noted in previous chapters, in the Nobel +prizes in literature, exponents of the same kind of +writing in a country have been honored in successive +generations. Björnson and Knut Hamsun, Heyse +and Hauptmann, Echegaray and Benavente, Anatole +France and Rolland, Henryk Sienkiewicz and Ladislaw +Reymont are examples of such awards. Another +inference from the lists of winners is that the adjudicators +wish to recognize the aspirations and +achievements of small countries that are too often +overlooked upon the map of world literature. +Thus Denmark and Switzerland, Ireland and Belgium +have shared with the so-called “great nations” of +Europe. Twice has Poland been selected for recognition. +The very name suggests struggle and oppression +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>on one hand, hope and faith in ultimate right on +the other. In spite of tragic sadness, the messages of +Poland in art and literature have been vital and lofty +in idealism. Some of the melancholy and passionate +yearning of later Poland has been expressed in the +poets Michievicz and Slowacki, who are allied in their +moods with Chopin; the “Funeral March” was described +by Liszt as “the murmuring plaint of a whole +nation following the bier of its dearest hopes.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_164_164" href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> In +his book, <i>Poland Reborn</i>, with keen analysis of advance +in education and literary opportunities, Roy +Devereux says, “Henceforward there will not be need +for Polish men of letters like Henryk Sienkiewicz, who +belongs as much to Western Europe as to Poland, to +seek the protection of a foreign flag for their literary +labours.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_165_165" href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> To Sienkiewicz came the Nobel award in +1905, a surprise to European critics and a blow to +Russian aspirants for the honor.</p> + +<p>Born in Lithuania, at Wola Okrzejska, in 1846, he +was sixty when he received the prize; he was already +known by translation to international readers. He +belonged to a patrician family and was educated at +the University of Warsaw until political conditions, +following the revolution of 1863, caused him to leave +Poland for Russia, where he edited a journal at St. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>Petersburg. He wanted to know more of the world +so he traveled, in gypsy or Bohemian fashion, in +Southern Europe; in 1876 he came to America, to Los +Angeles, seeking to found there a Polish Commonwealth +of Utopian type. He had written tales and +travel sketches under the pseudonym of “Litwos”—<i>Nobody +is a Prophet in his own Country</i> and <i>From +the Notebook of a Posen</i>. He wrote impressions of +America for a Warsaw newspaper; among these +earlier sketches were “Janko, the Musician,” “Across +the Prairies,” and “In Tartar Captivity.” A later +tale, “The Old Bell-Ringer,” was patriotic and wistful.</p> + +<p>In 1880 he returned to Poland where he faced sadness +in the death of his wife with the panacea of work +upon his trilogy of historical romances of Poland. +For eight years he worked winters in Warsaw at +libraries and in his study, in summers in the Carpathian +mountains. The results were the long, imaginative +but strictly historical tales of <i>With Fire and Sword</i>, relating +events from 1647 to 1651, <i>The Deluge</i>, from +1652 to 1657, and <i>Pan Michael</i>, dealing with the +Turkish invasion and incidents from 1670 to 1674. +This cycle of romances showed scholarship and dramatic +ability, especially in the first and third stories of +the trilogy. The background is panoramic; the +dialogue is natural in most places. The author visualized +individuals and the Polish people, under +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>sentiments of distress, fear, love, conflict, and aspiration. +The qualities of honor, patriotism, and faith +are emphasized in these portrayals of Poland, under +successive invasions of Cossacks, Swedes, and Turks. +He idealized Poland and gave hope to his people.</p> + +<p>Modern Poland was the setting for his next series +of tales, <i>Without Dogma</i> and <i>Children of the Soil</i>. +The former is pathological and tragic, the diary of +Leon Ploszowski, aristocrat and bore, and his love +for his cousin, Aneila. The vices of modern society +and self-indulgent forces are in sharp contrast with +the heroes of the trilogy. For many years he had +studied early Christianity with its opposing force, +Paganism. In 1896 he wrote his masterpiece, <i>Quo +Vadis</i>, which has been called “an epochal book.” +In many translations it was familiar to readers before +the Nobel prize was given to its author. Of somewhat +similar trend was the later brief message, <i>Let +Us Follow Him</i>, which appeared in a single book and +is included in the collection of stories and sketches, +<i>Hania</i>, in translations by C. W. Dynicwicz, Jeremiah +Curtin, and Casimir Gonski.⁠<a id="FNanchor_166_166" href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a></p> + +<p>The confessed purpose of <i>Quo Vadis</i> was to +show “how God’s truth, because it is the only Truth, +conquered pagan might.” The sustained interest in +this religio-historical novel is not gained by melodrama +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>or sensational intrigues. It has breadth and dignity. +The characters vary in vividness but among the outstanding +photographs are Paul and Petronius, Ursus +and Chilo, and the girl captive, Ligeia. He called the +tale “A Narrative of the Time of Nero.” The background +was convincing but Nero was not successfully +drawn; even such a master of characterization as +Sienkiewicz could not make the Roman emperor vitally +real to modern readers but he introduced several +dramatic situations that center about his baffling personality. +The question of the title, “Whither goest +thou?” was asked of the modern world of unrest and +discord, even as it was asked in the days of the +apostles; the author felt the need of guides of to-day to +hold up the banner of faith and service.</p> + +<p>Sympathy and spirituality were qualities found, not +alone in <i>Quo Vadis</i> but in many other works in fiction +by this Polish writer. <i>Knights of the Cross</i>, recounting +the struggle between the Poles and Lithuanians +against the Teutons, is a favorite with many readers. +<i>After Bread: a Story of Polish Emigrant Life in +America</i> (also entitled, <i>For Daily Bread</i> and <i>Peasants +in Exile</i>) is typical of his tales of emigration. <i>On +the Field of Glory</i> celebrates Sobieski’s rescue of +Vienna. Few authors have been so fortunate in English +translators as this Polish novelist. Jeremiah +Curtin, S. A. Binion, and S. C. de Soissons are among +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>the best known; they have given fine interpretations +to his historical trilogy, his religious novel, and such +other stories as <i>On the Field of Glory</i>, <i>On the Bright +Shore</i>, <i>In Desert and Wilderness</i>, <i>That Third Woman</i>, +and <i>In Vain</i>. Sienkiewicz lived until 1916, alert and +productive, ever exemplifying the word that he used in +a criticism of Zola, “The novel should strengthen +life, not undermine it; ennoble it, not defile it; bring +good tidings, not evil.”</p> + + +<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">Ladislaw Stanislaw Reymont</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The prize of 1924 has been awarded:</p> + +<p>To Reymont, Ladislaw, born 1868: “For his great epic, +<i>The Peasants</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_167_167" href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Again, a new generation has come “to hold the +candle to light the dark corners of the earth” in Poland, +since Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote his novels of +historical and religious potency. A new group of +authors had come forward, many of them scarcely +known outside their racial confines. Among the +better known of the representatives of “Young Poland” +is Ladislaw Reymont to whom the Nobel prize +was given in 1924. A few weeks before this award +was made public there appeared a translation of the +first part of the four-volume novel, <i>The Peasants</i> by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>Reymont, with the title, <i>Autumn</i> (Knopf, New York, +1925). The translator was Michael H. Dziewicki, +Professor of English Literature at the University of +Cracow. The book attracted meager attention until +the Nobel prize was announced; then a furor of interest +was aroused in this first volume and those to +appear since then—<i>Winter</i>, <i>Spring</i>, and <i>Summer</i>. +Reymont had visited America twice but escaped much +publicity. He had been translated into English as +author of <i>The Comedienne</i> (1920), the tale of a girl +who sought to be beautiful and famous on the stage +but ended in “philisticism.” Some of his short stories +had been included in a collection of Polish tales, in +the Oxford University series of <i>World Classics</i> +(1921). An extract from his industrial novel, <i>The +Promised Land</i>, was used in the <i>Anthology of Modern +Slavonic Literature</i>, edited by Paul Selver, in 1921. +He has written more than a score of novels, and is +well known and commended in Germany. Comparisons +to Sienkiewicz reveal more pictorial skill, +more dramatic vigor like that of Dumas, in the older +writer, but a realistic force of surpassing effects in Reymont.</p> + +<p>His family was of the lower middle class. His +father was a windmill owner in Kobiala Wielka, then +in Russian Poland, where the author was born in 1868. +He went to the village school and attended to the cattle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>and farm work. One of the interpreters of Reymont +to Americans has been Rupert Hughes; in the translation +of his Preface to the German edition of <i>The +Peasants</i> we read,⁠<a id="FNanchor_168_168" href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> “Reymont was born to be the epic +poet of the Polish village. He is, in spite of his +foreign name, a child of that strange, uncouth world +where he began his life among goose boys and cowherders, +where he drove the herds of his father, the +village organist, and whence he has climbed to the +rank of a beloved and recognized poet, spending a +large part of his life in Paris, the centre of modern +culture.” Reymont attended some of the gymnasiums, +or High Schools, but he was defiant to the Russian +demand <i>not</i> to speak in Polish; sometimes he was expelled.⁠<a id="FNanchor_169_169" href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p> + +<p>Several trades and occupations gave Reymont experiences +which he has used in some of his fiction. +He was a clerk in a store, railway employee, telegraph +operator, and longed to travel like the hero of <i>The +Dreamer</i>. For a time he was actor in a small company +whose reflections are found in <i>The Comedienne</i> +and <i>Lilly</i>. He was, also, a novitiate with the Paulist +Fathers for a time at Czenstochowa. <i>The Promised +Land</i>, with scenes laid at Lotz and indications of revolt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>against the capitalists and landowners (on the +part of the proletariat) was a forerunner of his +agrarian novel, <i>The Peasants</i>. The earlier book +has been compared with Zola’s <i>Germinal</i> in intense +naturalism. In this long story, <i>The Peasants</i>, Reymont +became the “mouthpiece of the peasant and rural +elements.” Combined with Reymont’s devotion to +the peasant village as “protagonist,” is his passion for +Nature in her varied aspects; hence he made his divisions +of the book to show the four seasons. Like +Thomas Hardy and George Meredith he uses Nature +as a vital personality in his story, aiding or restraining +the development of his leading characters, especially +Yagna, who has been called “a Polish Tess.” +The English author is superior in condensation and +dramatic sympathy.</p> + +<p>To use the Polish peasant as literary material is no +exclusive trait of Reymont; he has been portrayed by +other writers like Ladislaw Orkan, Jan Kasprowicz, +and Stanislaw Prybyszewsski. In <i>The Peasants</i> the +slow movement is varied by scenes of intense emotion, +like the marriage festival in <i>Autumn</i>, or the death of +Kuba, like the passionate quest of Yagna and Antek +in <i>Winter</i>, and the bitter fight between father and son, +husband and lover of Yagna, or the tragic, gruesome +scene of the death of the father, old Boryna, in the +last pages of <i>Spring</i>. The mob-attack upon Yagna, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>at the close of <i>Summer</i>, grips the reader and makes +a strong climax to the epical story. In addition to +specific, haunting situations, there are interwoven customs +and legends and a wonderful collection of Polish +proverbs (a mine of literature!). Passions of love +and hate and revenge, the constant excess of vodka and +clouded minds, fear of landlord and slumbering revolt +against the loss of forest lands and oncoming industrial +domination—such are significant factors in this +panoramic novel. In the background is the dull color +of the soil, the rank smells and fragrant odors of farmyards +and woods, sunsets of splendor, and terrifying +storms. One of the most poetic, idealistic passages is +the last chapter in <i>Autumn</i>, the passing of the soul of +faithful Kuba, after his long years of service and keen +suffering:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>And higher yet it flew, and higher, yet higher, higher—yea, +till it set its feet—</p> + +<p>Where man can hear no longer the voice of lamentation, nor +the mournful discords of all things that breathe—</p> + +<p>Where only fragrant lilies exhale balmy odours, where fields +of flowers in bloom waft honey-sweet scents athwart the air; +where starry rivers roll over beds of a million hues; where night +comes never at all—⁠<a id="FNanchor_170_170" href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Many passages in this novel are repugnant to +Anglo-Saxon æsthetic tastes, if one is unable to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>assimilate the raw sordidness of many modern stories +of the soil, with the passages of emotional vigor and +poetic beauties. Reymont has revealed, in panoramic +form, the life of the Polish peasant, typified in the +family and associates of Boryna; he has treated his +big theme with psychological insight, realistic photography, +and robust idealism. The first and second +volumes seem more spontaneous and dramatic than +the later. He lacks condensation and incisiveness. +An excellent review of the four volumes by Vida Scudder +is in <i>The Atlantic Monthly</i>, August, 1925.</p> + +<p>Reymont knows America far better than Americans +know him or his books, but the discrepancy is being +remedied. He enjoys friendship with many men of +affairs and letters here, including Rupert Hughes, +whose story, <i>What Will People Say?</i> has been translated +by Mme. Reymont, a fine linguist, and published +serially in the Warsaw <i>Gazeta</i>. Many critics have +noted the sincerity of Reymont as man and artist.</p> + +<p>In Chapter III, “Naturalism and Nationalism,” of +the collected lectures, on <i>Modern Polish Literature</i>, +by Roman Dyboski, Professor at Cracow University,⁠<a id="FNanchor_171_171" href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> +there are interesting comments upon Reymont’s earlier +work and his tendencies. His attempt at historical +fiction, following the lead of Sienkiewicz, was recorded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>in <i>The Year 1794</i> but it was, says Professor +Dyboski, a failure, the “bewildering mass of details +obscured the outlines of the historical picture.” More +adapted to his analytical skill are the earlier novels, +<i>Ferments</i> and <i>The Dreamer</i> (largely autobiographical +in background), and the later, more impersonal tales +that deal with anarchists and political conditions, <i>The +Vampire</i> and <i>Opium Smokers</i>. Like other critics +Professor Dyboski ranks Stephen Zeromski as “supreme +in the Polish novel today.” He compares him +to Sienkiewicz; he has the dramatic power and concentration +which Reymont lacks. Zeromski is “a social +pessimist”; like Sienkiewicz he was a short-story +writer at first, then turned to history for fictional +themes, like <i>Lay of the Leader</i> and has written more +recently of contemporaneous conditions. With his +faults of diffuseness and unevenness of structure, Reymont +is gifted in depicting the small and large interests +of the Polish peasant, in revealing their aspirations +and dormant passion for freedom.</p> + +<p>As an example of “the novel of the soil,” so close +to earth that the reader often finds his senses are keen +and that other faculties are almost dormant, this epic +by Reymont proclaims him a masterful interpreter of +peasant life. In every volume there are lapses of interest +and diffuseness. In retrospect, however, the +many monotonous pages will be forgotten and the outstanding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>scenes of passionate love, hatred, suffering, +and primitive ecstasy will remain in memory as tributes +to this second Polish novelist who is listed +among the Nobel prize winners in literature.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_163_163" href="#FNanchor_163_163" class="label">[163]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1905.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_164_164" href="#FNanchor_164_164" class="label">[164]</a> <i>Poland Reborn</i> by Roy Devereux, London, 1922, p. 237.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_165_165" href="#FNanchor_165_165" class="label">[165]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 225.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_166_166" href="#FNanchor_166_166" class="label">[166]</a> Chicago, 1898; Philadelphia, 1898.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_167_167" href="#FNanchor_167_167" class="label">[167]</a> Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_168_168" href="#FNanchor_168_168" class="label">[168]</a> By permission of Rupert Hughes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_169_169" href="#FNanchor_169_169" class="label">[169]</a> Interview with Dr. A. M. Nawench in <i>New York Times Review</i>, +November 30, 1924.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_170_170" href="#FNanchor_170_170" class="label">[170]</a> <i>The Peasants: Autumn</i> from the Polish of Ladislaw St. Reymont, +New York, 1924. By permission of Alfred A. Knopf.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_171_171" href="#FNanchor_171_171" class="label">[171]</a> Given at King’s College; Oxford University Press, 1924. By permission +of <i>Oxford University Press</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHRONOLOGICAL_LIST_OF_NOBEL_PRIZE"> + CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF NOBEL PRIZE + WINNERS IN LITERATURE + </h2> +</div> + + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="fs">PAGE</span></td> + +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1901. <span class="smcap">Sully-Prudhomme, René François Armand</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1902. <span class="smcap">Mommsen, Theodor</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1903. <span class="smcap">Björnson, Björnstjerne</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1904. <span class="smcap">Mistral, Frédéric</span>, shared with</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1904. <span class="smcap">Echegaray, José</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1905. <span class="smcap">Sienkiewicz, Henryk</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1906. <span class="smcap">Carducci, Giosuè</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1907. <span class="smcap">Kipling, Rudyard</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1908. <span class="smcap">Eucken, Rudolf</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1909. <span class="smcap">Lagerlöf, Selma</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1910. <span class="smcap">Heyse, Paul</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1911. <span class="smcap">Maeterlinck, Maurice</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1912. <span class="smcap">Hauptmann, Gerhart</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1913. <span class="smcap">Tagore, Rabindranath</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">No Award in 1914</span></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1915. <span class="smcap">Rolland, Romain</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1916. <span class="smcap">Heidenstam, Verner von</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1917. <span class="smcap">Pontoppidan, Henrik</span>, shared with</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1917. <span class="smcap">Gjellerup, Karl</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">No Award in 1918</span></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1919. <span class="smcap">Spitteler, Carl</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1920. <span class="smcap">Hamsun, Knut</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1921. <span class="smcap">France, Anatole</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1922. <span class="smcap">Benavente, Jacinto</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1923. <span class="smcap">Yeats, William Butler</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">1924. <span class="smcap">Reymont, Ladislaw</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[Pg 278]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[Pg 279]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY_OF_NOBEL_PRIZE_WINNERS"> + BIBLIOGRAPHY OF “NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS + IN LITERATURE” + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The compiler of this bibliography has not attempted to +make an exhaustive list of writings of the several prize winners; +the aim is to suggest an adequate reading list, to supplement the +studies of individual authors and to stimulate further research. +As this book is intended, especially, for English and American +readers, the foreign editions are not cited, if there is any adequate +translation available; in a few cases, the works must be +read in the original language.</p> + +<p>The bibliography has been compiled largely with the +assistance of librarians at the Widener Library of Harvard +University, so that the books listed will be found in the card +catalogue there, and at the Library of Congress. In isolated +cases, the <i>data</i> have been furnished by individual writers and +translators. The authors are here listed in the order of the +awards, with dates appended; in the <a href="#Page_301">Index</a> they are given +alphabetically.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Sully-Prudhomme</span> (1901)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Œuvres</i>: 5 Vols. (Paris, 1869-1901).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Selected poems in <i>Anthology of French Poetry</i>, edited by +H. Carrington (London and New York, 1900).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Selected poems in <i>The Modern Book of French Verse</i>, edited +by Albert Boni (New York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Journal Intime</i> (Paris, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Le testament poétique</i>, 4th ed. (Paris, 1901).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>La vraie religion selon Pascal</i> (Paris, 1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Que sais-je? Examen de conscience</i> (Paris, 1896).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>On Life and Letters</i> by Anatole France (“Three Poets”), +translated by A. W. Evans, first series (London and New +York, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Punch and Judy and Other Essays</i> by Maurice Baring (New +York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Studies in Literature</i>: “Some French Writers of Verse” +by Edward Dowden (London, 1892).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Mommsen</span> (1902)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The History of Rome</i>, translated with the author’s sanction +and additions by Rev. William P. Dickson (London, +1862, 1885; New York, 1869, 1908); (<i>Everyman’s Library</i>, +London and New York, 1911, 1916); 5 Vols. +(Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1903).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rome, from Earliest Time to 40 B. C.</i>, edited by Arthur C. +Howland (Philadelphia, 1906).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Provinces of the Roman Empire, from Cæsar to Diocletian</i>, +translated with the author’s sanction and additions by +Rev. William P. Dickson (New York, 1887; London +and New York, 1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Historical Essays</i> by E. A. S. Freeman, second series, 3rd ed. +(New York and London, 1889).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Some Eighteenth Century Byways and Other Essays</i> by J. +Buchan (London, 1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Theodor Mommsen: His Life and Work</i> by Wm. W. +Fowler (Edinburgh, 1909).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Björnson</span> (1903)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Novels</i>, in 13 Vols., edited by Edmund Gosse (London and +New York, 1895-1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Novels</i>, in 3 Vols., translated by R. B. Anderson, American +edition (Boston, 1881).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Plays</i>, 2 series, translated by Edwin Björkman (New York, +1913, 1914).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Plays</i>, 2 Vols., translated by R. Farquharson Sharp (<i>Everyman’s +Library</i>, London and New York, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Poems and Songs</i>, translated from the Norwegian in the +original meters, by Arthur Hubbell Palmer (New York, +1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Arne</i>, and <i>The Fisher Maiden</i>, translated by Walter Low, +with introduction (London and New York, 1894).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mary</i>, translated by Mary Morison (London and New +York, 1910).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mary, Queen of Scots</i>, translated by August Sahlberg +(Chicago, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>When the New Wine Blooms</i>, translated by Lee M. Hollander +(<i>Poet Lore</i>, Boston, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Heritage of the Kurts</i>, translated by Cecil Fairfax +(London, 1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Wise Knut</i>, translated by Bernard Stahl (New York, +1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Adventures in Criticism</i> by A. T. Quiller-Couch, rev. ed. +(New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Björnstjerne Björnson</i> by William Morton Payne (Chicago, +1910).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i> by Georg +Brandes, rev. ed. (New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Northern Studies</i> by Edmund Gosse (London, 1890).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Mistral</span> (1904; shared with Echegaray)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Œuvres de Frédéric Mistral, texte et traduction</i> (Paris, +1887-1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Le poème du Rhône, xii chants, texte, provençal et traduction +française</i> (Paris, 1897).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mireille, poème provençal, illustré par Jean Droit</i> (Paris, +1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mireio: a Provençal Poem</i>, translated by Harriet Waters +Preston (Boston, 1872; London, 1890).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mireio</i>, from the original Provençal, under the author’s sanction, +translated by C. H. Grant: “An English Version +of Mr. Frédéric Mistral’s <i>Mireio</i>” (Avignon, 1867).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mireille; a Pastoral Epic of Provence</i>, translated by H. +Crichton (London, 1868).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Memoirs of Mistral</i>, rendered into English by Constance +Elisabeth Maud; lyrics from the Provençal by Alma +Strettell (Mrs. Lawrence Harrison) (New York, +1907).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Selections from <i>Mireio</i>, <i>Calendau</i>, and <i>Nerto</i>, translated by +Harriet Waters Preston, in <i>Library of the World’s Best +Literature</i>, edited by C. D. Warner, Vol. 17.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Frédéric Mistral, Poet and Leader in Provence</i>, by C. A. +Downer (New York, 1901).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Echegaray</span> (1904; shared with Mistral)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Great Galeoto: Folly or Saintliness</i>, translated with +introduction by Hannah Lynch (Boston, 1895).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Madman or Saint</i>, translated by Ruth Lansing (<i>Poet Lore</i>, +Boston, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mariana</i>, translated by James Graham (Boston, 1895).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mariana</i>, translated by F. Sarda and C. D. S. Wupperman +(New York, 1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Son of Don Juan</i>, translated by James Graham (Boston, +1895).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Street Singer</i>, translated by John Garrett Underhill +(<i>Drama</i>, Chicago, 1917); included in</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>25 Short Plays</i>, edited by Frank Shay (New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Always Ridiculous</i>, translated by T. W. Gilkyson (<i>Poet +Lore</i>, Boston, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The World and His Wife</i> (an American adaptation of <i>The +Great Galeoto</i>) by C. F. Neidlinger (New York, 1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Representative Continental Dramas</i>, edited by Montrose J. +Moses (Boston, 1924).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Masterpieces of Modern Spanish Drama</i>, edited by Barrett +H. Clark (London and New York, 1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i> by Barrett H. Clark +(London and New York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Modern Drama in Europe</i> by Storm Jameson (London +and New York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Main Currents of Spanish Literature</i> by J. D. M. Ford +(New York, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Drama of Transition</i> by Isaac Goldberg (Cincinnati, +1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Masques and Mummers</i> by C. F. Neidlinger (New York, +1899).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Dramatic Opinions and Essays</i> by G. Bernard Shaw (London +and New York, 1907).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Modern Drama</i> by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York, +1915).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Sienkiewicz</span> (1905)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1">Authorized and unabridged translations from the Polish by +Jeremiah Curtin: <i>With Fire and Sword</i>; <i>The Deluge</i>; +<i>Pan Michael</i>; <i>Quo Vadis</i>; <i>Without Dogma</i>; <i>In Desert and +Wilderness</i> (Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1890-1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Quo Vadis</i>, translated by S. A. Binion and S. Malevsky +(Philadelphia, 1897).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Hania</i>, short tales, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, +1897).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Let Us Follow Him</i>, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, +1897).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>On the Field of Glory</i>, translated by Jeremiah Curtin +(Boston, 1906).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>On the Bright Shore</i>, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, +1898).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>On the Bright Shore</i>, translated by S. C. de Soissons (New +York, 1897).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Pan Michael</i>, translated by S. A. Binion (New York, 1898, +1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Irony of Life</i> (<i>Children of the Soil</i>), translated by +N. M. Babad (New York, 1900).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>In Desert and Wilderness</i>, translated by Max A. Drezmal +(Boston, 1912, 1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>After Bread (For Daily Bread: Peasants in Exile)</i> translated +by Vatslaf Z. Hlasko and Thomas H. Bullick (New +York, 1897).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Third Woman</i>, translated by N. M. Babad (New York, +1898).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Lillian Morris and Other Stories</i>, translated by Jeremiah +Curtin (Boston, 1895).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Modern Polish Literature</i>, lectures by Roman Dyboski, +Ch. II (Oxford University Press, 1924).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Carducci (1906)</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Carducci: a Selection of his Poems</i>, with three introductions, +etc., translated by G. L. Bickersteth (London, 1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Poems by Carducci</i>, translated with an introduction by Maud +Holland (New York, 1907).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Poems of Giosuè Carducci</i>, with verse translations, notes +and introduction by Frank Sewall (New York, 1892).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Poems of Italy</i>, selections from the odes of Giosuè Carducci, +translated by M. W. Arms (New York, 1906).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Italy from the Poems of Joshua Carducci</i>, translated by E. A. +Tribe (Florence, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A Selection from the Poems of Giosuè Carducci</i>, translated +with biographical introduction by Emily A. Tribe (London +and New York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Selections from Carducci</i>, prose and poetry, with introductory +notes and vocabulary by A. Marinoni (New York, +1913).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Rime Nuove</i> of Giosuè Carducci, translated from the +Italian by Laura Fullerton Gilbert (Boston, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Italian Influences</i> by Eugene Schuyler (New York, 1901).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Italica; Studies in Italian Life and Letters</i> by William +Roscoe Thayer (Boston, 1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Giosuè Carducci</i> by Orlo Williams (London, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">“The Poetry of Carducci,” (<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, April, +1909).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Kipling</span> (1907)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Kipling’s Collected Works</i>, 23 Vols., Outward Bound Edition +(Charles Scribner’s Sons; New York, 1897-1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Writings in Prose and Verse</i>, 28 Vols., Pocket Edition +(Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York, 1898-1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">The New World Edition, 13 Vols. (Doubleday, Page & +Co., Garden City; Toronto).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rudyard Kipling’s Verse</i>; Inclusive Edition (Garden City, +New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Years Between</i> (New York, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>American Notes</i> (Boston, 1899).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Independence</i>, Rectorial Address at St. Andrews (London +and New York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Letters of Travel</i> (London and New York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Land and Sea Tales for Boys and Girls (for Scouts and +Scoutmasters)</i> (London and New York, 1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Irish Guards in the Great War</i> (London and New +York, 1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Fringes of the Fleet</i> (London and New York, 1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Second Jungle Book</i>, decorated by John Lockwood +Kipling (New York, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Selected Stories from Kipling</i>, edited by William Lyon +Phelps (New York, 1919, 1921).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Eyes of Asia</i> (Garden City; New York, 1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mine Own People</i>, introduction by Henry James (New +York, 1899).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Essays in Little</i> by Andrew Lang (London and New York, +1899).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Heretics</i> by Gilbert K. Chesterton (London and New York, +1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rudyard Kipling: a Criticism</i> by Richard Le Gallienne +(London and New York, 1900).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Shelburne Essays</i>, series II, by Paul Elmer More (New +York, 1906).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Eucken</span> (1908).</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Fundamental Concepts of Modern Philosophic Thought</i>, +critically and historically considered, translated by M. +Stuart Phelps, with introduction by Noah Porter (New +York, 1880).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Can We Still Be Christians?</i> translated by Lucy Judge Gibson +(New York, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Christianity and the New Idealism</i>, translated by Lucy +Judge Gibson and W. R. Boyce Gibson (London and +New York, 1909, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Collected Essays of Rudolf Eucken</i>, translated and edited by +Meyrick Booth (New York and London, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Intellectual Movements of the Present Day</i>, translated by +Meyrick Booth (London, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Knowledge and Life</i>, translated by Tudor Jones (London +and New York, 1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Truth of Religion</i>, translated by Tudor Jones (New +York, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Meaning and Value of Life</i>, translated by Lucy Judge +Gibson and W. R. Boyce Gibson (London and New York, +1909, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Problem of Human Life, as Viewed by the Great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>Thinkers from Plato to the Present Time</i>, translated by +W. S. Hough and W. R. B. Gibson (New York, 1909, +1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Life’s Basis and Life’s Ideal</i>, translated by Alban G. Widgery +(London, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Naturalism or Idealism?</i> (Nobel lecture) translated by Alban +G. Widgery (Cambridge, England, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Deems Lectures</i>, delivered in 1913 at New York University, +translated by Margaret von Seidewitz (New York, 1913), +English edition by W. Tudor Jones (London, 1913), entitled, +<i>Present-Day Ethics in their Relation to the +Spiritual Life</i>.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Main Currents of Modern Thought</i>, translated by Meyrick +Booth (London, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Socialism; an Analysis</i>, translated by Joseph McCabe +(London and New York, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels</i> by himself; +translated by Joseph McCabe (London and New York, +1921, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rudolf Eucken: His Philosophy and Influence</i> by Meyrick +Booth (New York, 1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Eucken and Bergson; Their Significance for Christian +Thought</i> by E. Hermann (Boston, 1912).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Selma Lagerlöf</span> (1909)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1">The Northland Edition of Selma Lagerlöf’s <i>Works</i>, 11 Vols. +(Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Christ Legends</i>, translated by Velma Swanston Howard +(New York, 1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Gösta Berling’s Saga</i>, or <i>The Story of Gösta Berling</i>, translated +by Pauline Bancroft Flach (London; New York, +1910, 1918).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Invisible Links</i>, translated by Pauline Bancroft Flach +(Boston, 1899; New York).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>From a Swedish Homestead</i>, translated by Jessie Brochner +(London and New York, 1901).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Jerusalem</i>, translated by Velma Swanston Howard (Garden +City, New York, 1915, 1918).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Jerusalem</i>, translated by Jessie Brochner (London, +1903).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Holy City: Jerusalem II</i>, translated by Velma Swanston +Howard (Garden City, New York, 1918).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Liliecrona’s Home</i>, translated by Anna Barwell (New +York, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mårbacka</i>, translated by Velma Swanston Howard (Garden +City, New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Miracles of Antichrist</i>, translated by Pauline Bancroft +Flach (Boston, 1899, Garden City, New York).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Emperor of Portugallia</i>, translated by Velma Swanston +Howard (Garden City, New York, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Girl from the Marshcroft</i>, translated by Velma Swanston +Howard (New York, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Outcast</i>, translated by W. W. Worster (Garden City, +New York, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Treasure</i>, translated by Arthur G. Chater (Garden +City, New York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Wonderful Adventures of Nils</i>; <i>Further Adventures of +Nils</i>, translated by Velma Swanston Howard (Garden +City, New York, 1907, 1911, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Selma Lagerlöf: The Woman, Her Work, Her Message</i> by +Harry E. Maule (Garden City, New York, 1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Voices of Tomorrow</i> by Edwin Björkman (New York, +1913).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Paul Heyse</span> (1910)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Deutschen Novellenschatz</i>, 24 Vols., edited by Max Lentz +(New York, 1899).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>L’Arrabiata</i>, edited by Mary A. Frost with notes and introduction +(New York, 1896).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>L’Arrabiata</i>, translated by Vivian Elsie Lyon (New York, +1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>L’Arrabiata</i>, edited by W. W. Flower (Ann Arbor, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>At the Ghost Hour</i> and <i>The Fair Abigail</i>, translated by +Frances A. Van Santford (New York, 1894).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A Divided Heart and Other Stories</i>, translated by Constance +S. Copeland (New York, 1894).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mary of Magdala</i>, translated by W. Winter (New York, +1904).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Barbarossa and Other Tales</i> by L. C. S. (London, 1874).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mary of Magdala</i>, an historical and romantic drama in 5 +acts; adapted in England by Lionel Vale (New York, +1902).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Tales from the German of Paul Heyse</i> (D. Appleton & Co., +New York, 1879).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Study of Paul Heyse in <i>German Classics</i>, edited by Kuno +Francke (German Publishing Co., New York).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i> by Georg +Brandes (New York, new ed., 1925).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Maeterlinck</span> (1911)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Works of Maurice Maeterlinck</i>, 27 Vols., in two editions, +cloth and leather (Dodd, Mead & Co.; London and New +York) includes essays, plays, poems, children’s books; +interpreted by several translators, including Alfred Sutro, +Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, Bernard Miall, Montrose +J. Moses.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck</i>, translated and edited with +introduction, by Richard Hovey (Chicago, 1894, 2 vols.; +New York, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Joyzelle</i>, translated by Charlotte Porter (<i>Poet Lore</i>, xv, iii, +Boston).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Three Little Dramas for Marionettes</i>, translated by Alfred +Sutro and William Archer (Chicago and London, 1899).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck</i> by Jethro Bithell +(London, 1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Maurice Maeterlinck: Poet and Philosopher</i> by MacDonald +Clark (New York, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Symbolist Movement in Literature</i> by Arthur Symons +(London and New York, 1899; New York, 1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Maurice Maeterlinck: A Study</i> by Montrose J. Moses +(New York, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Dramatists of Today</i> by E. E. Hale, Jr. (New York, 1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Iconoclasts</i> by James Huneker (New York, 1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Varied Types</i> by Gilbert K. Chesterton (New York, 1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Essays on Modern Dramatists</i> by William Lyon Phelps +(New York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i> by Barrett H. Clark (New +York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Modern Drama</i> by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York, +1915).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Hauptmann</span> (1912)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann</i>, 8 Vols., +edited by Ludwig Lewisohn, translations by Lewisohn +and others (Huebsch, New York, 1906-1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Hannele</i>, translated by William Archer (London, 1894).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Hannele</i>, translated by Charles Henry Meltzer (New York, +1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Assumption of Hannele</i>, translated by G. S. Bryan +(<i>Poet Lore</i>, Boston, 1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Sunken Bell</i>, translated with introduction by Charles +Henry Meltzer (New York, 1899; Garden City, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Sunken Bell</i>; <i>Elga</i>; <i>And Pippa Dances</i>, all translated +by Mary Harned (<i>Poet Lore</i>, Boston, 1898, 1906, 1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Weavers</i>, translated by Mary Morison (included in +<i>Chief Contemporary Dramatists</i> edited by Thomas H. +Dickinson; Boston, 1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Parsival</i>, translated by Oakley Williams (New York, 1915).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Coming of Peace</i>, translated by Janet A. Church and +C. E. Wheeler (Chicago and London, 1900).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Fool in Christ: Emanuel Quint</i>, a novel, translated by +Thomas Seltzer (New York, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Phantom</i>, a novel translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan +(New York, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Atlantis</i>, a novel translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer +(Huebsch, New York, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Island of the Great Mother</i>, translated by Willa and +Edwin Muir (Huebsch, The Viking Press, New York, +1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Gerhart Hauptmann: His Life and His Work</i> by Karl Holl +(London, 1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Studies in Modern German Literature</i> by Otto Heller +(Boston and New York, 1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Glimpses of Modern German Culture</i> by Kuno Francke +(New York, 1898).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Naturalism in the Recent German Drama</i>, with special +reference to Gerhart Hauptmann, by Alfred Stoeckius +(New York, 1903).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Gerhart Hauptmann and John Galsworthy: a Parallel</i> by +W. R. Trumbauer (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, +1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Nature Background in the Dramas of Hauptmann</i>, by Mary +Agnes Quimby (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, +1918).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i> by Barrett H. Clark (New +York, 1925).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Rabindranath Tagore</span> (1913)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Writings of Rabindranath Tagore</i>, 20 Vols. (The Macmillan +Co., London and New York).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Gitanjali</i>, translated by author, with introduction by W. B. +Yeats (London and New York, 1913, 1916).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Crescent Moon: Child-Poems</i> translated from original +Bengali by author (New York, 1913, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Japan; a Lecture</i> (London and New York, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Nationalism in the West and Japan</i> (London and New York, +1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>My Reminiscences</i> (London and New York, 1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rabindranath Tagore: a Biographical Study</i> by Earnest Rhys +(New York, 1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Rabindranath Tagore: the Man and His Poetry</i> by B. K. +Roy (New York, 1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Glimpses of Bengal</i>, selected from letters of Rabindranath +Tagore (London and New York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One with the +Universal Being</i> (comparison of Tagore and Gandhi) by +Romain Rolland, translated by Catherine D. Groth (New +York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore</i> by Sarvepalli +Radhakrishnan (London, 1918).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Romain Rolland</span> (1915: no award in 1914)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1">Many of the novels and studies by Rolland are published +by Henry Holt and Co., (New York).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Jean-Christophe</i>, 3 Vols., translated by Gilbert Cannan +(London and New York, 1910, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Fourteenth of July and Danton</i>, authorized translation +by Barrett H. Clark (New York, 1918).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Pierre and Luce</i>, translated by Charles De Kay (New York, +1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Tolstoy</i>, translated by Bernard Miall (London and New +York, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The People’s Theatre</i>, translated by Barrett H. Clark +(London and New York, 1918, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Wolves; a Play</i>, translated by Barrett H. Clark +(Drama, 1917, No. 32).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Life of Michael Angelo</i>, translated by Frederic Lees +(London and New York, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Colas Breugnon</i>, translated by Katherine Miller (New York, +1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Clerambault: the Story of an Independent Spirit during the +War</i>, translated by Katherine Miller (London and New +York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Liluli</i>, with wood engravings by Frans Masereel (New +York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Above the Battle</i>, translated by C. K. Ogden (Chicago, +1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Above the Battlefield</i>, with introduction by G. L. Dickinson +(Cambridge, England, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Forerunner</i>, a sequel to <i>Above the Battle</i>, translated by +Eden and Cedar Paul (New York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Some Musicians of Former Days</i>, translated by Mary Blaiklock +(London and New York, 1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Annette and Silvie</i> (<i>The Soul Enchanted: L’âme enchantée</i>) +translated by Ben Ray Redman (New York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Summer</i>, translated by Eleanor Strinson and Wyck Brooks +(New York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Mahatma Gandhi: The Man Who Became One with the +Universal Being</i>, translated by Catherine D. Groth +(London and New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Romain Rolland: the Man and His Work</i> by Stefan Zweig, +translated by Eden and Cedar Paul (New York, 1921).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Heidenstam</span> (1916)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Sweden’s Laureate: Selected Poems</i>, translated with introduction +by Charles Wharton Stork (Yale University +Press, New Haven, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Charles Men</i>, translated by Charles Wharton Stork, +with introduction by Fredrik Böök (New York, 1920).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A King and His Campaigners</i>, translated by Axel Tegnier +(London, 1902).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Soothsayer</i>, translated by Karoline M. Knudsen (Boston, +1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Birth of God</i>, translated by Karoline M. Knudsen +(Boston, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Tree of the Folkungs</i>, translated by Arthur G. Chater +(New York, 1925).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Henrik Pontoppidan</span> (1917)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Reisebilder aus Dänemark</i> (1890).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Apothecary’s Daughter</i>, translated into English by C. L. +Nielson (London, 1890).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Emanuel or Children of the Soil</i>, From the Danish, translated +by Mrs. Edgar Lucas (London, 1896).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Promised Land</i>, From the Danish, translated by Mrs. +Edgar Lucas (with illustrations by Nellie Ericsen) (London, +1896).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Hans Im Glück</i>, Ein Romane, ubersetzung von Mathilde +Mann: I, II (Leipzig, 1906).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Der alte Adam</i>, zwei Roman, ubersetzung von Rich. Guttmann +(München, 1912).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Aus jungen Tagen</i>, ubersetzung von Mathilde Mann (Leipzig, +1913).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Karl Gjellerup</span> (1917)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Die Opferfeuer</i>, Ein Legenden-Stück (Leipzig, 1903).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Der Pilger Kamanita</i>, Ein Legendenroman (Frankfurt, +1907).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Pilgrim Kamanita</i>, a legendary romance, translated +by John E. Logie (London, 1911).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Das Weib des Vollendeten</i>, Ein Legendenroman (Frankfurt, +1907).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Reif für das Leben</i> (Jena, 1916).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Der goldene Zweig</i>, Dichtung und Novellenkranz aus der +Zeit des Kaisers Tiberius (Leipzig, 1917).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Minna</i>, a novel, translated by C. L. Neilson (London, +1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Die Gottesfreundin</i> (Leipzig, 1918).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>An der Grenze</i>, Roman (Leipzig, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Romulus</i>; ubersetzung von Margarete Böttger (Leipzig, +1924).</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>: the bibliographical lists above on Pontoppidan and Gjellerup +have been prepared for the compiler through the courtesy of the +Royal Library (the Danish National Library) of Copenhagen.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Carl Spitteler</span> (1919: no award in 1918)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Prometheus und Epimetheus</i> (Jena 1881, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Balladen</i> (Zürich, 1906).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Imago</i> (Jena, 1906, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Olympian Spring</i> (<i>Olympischer Frühling</i>) (Jena, 1900, +1911, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Two Little Misogynists</i>, translated by Mme. la Vicomtesse +Le Roquette-Buisson, with decorations by A. Helene +Carter (New York, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Meine Frühesten Erlebnisse</i>: or <i>My Earliest Experiences</i> +(Jena, 1914, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Study of Carl Spitteler in <i>The German Classics</i>, edited by +Kuno Francke (Vol. XIV: New York, 1914). With +some translations.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Studies from Ten Literatures</i> by Ernest Boyd (New York, +1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Carl Spitteler</i>: Monograph (in German) by Eugen Diederichs +Verlag in Jena.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Contemporary Review</i>, January, 1920.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Knut Hamsun</span> (1920)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1">The writings of Hamsun, in American edition, are issued +largely by Alfred A. Knopf (New York).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Hunger</i>, translated by George Egerton (pseudonym) with +introduction by Edwin Björkman (London, 1899, New +York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Pan</i>, translated by W. W. Worster (New York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Victoria</i>, translated by Arthur G. Chater (New York, 1923).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Children of the Time</i>, translated by J. S. Scott (New York, +1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Dreamers</i>, translated by W. W. Worster (New York, 1921). +(English title, <i>Mothwise</i>, London, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Shallow Soil</i>, translated by Carl Christian Hylested (London +and New York, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Growth of the Soil</i>, translated by W. W. Worster (London +and New York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Segelfoss Town</i>, translated by J. S. Scott (London, 1921, +New York, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>In the Grip of Life</i> (play), translated by Graham and +Tristam Rawson (New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Knut Hamsun: a Study</i> by Hanna Astrup Larsen (New +York, 1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Knut Hamsun; His Personality and His Outlook upon Life</i> +by Josef Wiehr, <i>Smith College Studies in Modern Languages</i> +(Northampton, 1922).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Anatole France</span> (1921)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1">The writings of Anatole France are appearing, in the Tours +Edition, issued by Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Another edition, already complete, by the same publishers, is +the Library Edition (31 Vols.).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Other volumes by same publishers, include:</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque</i>, illustrated by Frank C. +Pape (New York).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Honey Bee; a Fairy Story for Children</i>, translated by Mrs. +John Lane, illustrated by Florence Lundborg.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Joan of Arc</i>, translated by Winifred Stephens; 2 Vols.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>On Life and Letters</i>, Series I and II translated by A. W. +Evans, Series III translated by D. B. Stewart, Series IV +translated by Bernard Miall (London and New York, +1923-25).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Anatole France; the Man and His Work</i> by James Lewis +May (London and New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Opinions of Anatole France</i>, recorded by Paul Gsell +(London and New York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Anatole France Himself: a Boswellian Record</i> by Jean-Jacques +Brousson (Philadelphia, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>French Novelists of Today</i> by Winifred Stephens (London +and New York, 1908).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Egoists</i> by James Huneker (New York, 1909).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Studies in Ten Literatures</i> by Ernest Boyd (New York, +1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Those Europeans</i> by Sisley Huddlestone (London and New +York, 1924).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Benavente</span> (1922)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Plays</i> by Jacinto Benavente, translated with introduction by +John Garrett Underhill; four series, including his best +plays (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York: 1917, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Bonds of Interest</i> is reprinted in <i>Chief Contemporary +Dramatists</i>, Series II, edited by Thomas H. Dickinson +(Boston, 1921), and, also, in <i>Representative Continental +Dramas</i>, edited by Montrose J. Moses (Boston, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>His Widow’s Husband</i>, translated by John Garrett Underhill, +is reprinted in <i>Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays</i>, +edited by Shay and Loving (Cincinnati, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Nobody Knows What He Wants</i>, or <i>The Dancer and the +Doer</i> (1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Smile of Mona Lisa</i>, translated by John Armstrong +Herman, <i>Contemporary Dramatists</i> Series (Boston, 1915, +1919).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Jacinto Benavente</i> by Walter Starkie (Oxford University +Press, 1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Modern Drama in Europe</i> by Storm Jameson (New York, +1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Drama of Transition</i> by Isaac Goldberg (Cincinnati, +1922).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Main Currents of Spanish Literature</i> by J. D. W. Ford +(New York, 1919).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>A Study of the Modern Drama</i> by Barrett H. Clark (New +York, 1925).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Yeats</span> (1923)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1">The writings of Yeats; plays, poems, essays and “controversies” +are issued in varied editions by the Macmillan Co., +London and New York.</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>John Sherman and Dhoya</i>, by Ganconagh (pseudonym) +(London and New York, 1891).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Reveries over Childhood and Youth</i> (New York, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Plays in Prose and Verse</i>, written for the Irish Theatre, and +generally with the help of a friend (London, 1922; New +York, 1924).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Land of Heart’s Desire</i> (London, 1894; Boston, 1894; +Chicago, 1894; Portland, Maine, 1913).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Responsibilities</i> (London and New York, 1916).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Selected Poems</i> (New York, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>William Butler Yeats; a Critical Study</i> by Forrest Reid +(New York, 1915).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Twenty-Five Years; Reminiscences</i> by Katherine Tynan +Hinkson (New York, 1914).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival</i> by +Horatio Sheafe Kraus (London, 1905).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Studies in Prose and Verse</i> by Arthur Symons (London, +1904).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>William Butler Yeats; a Literary Study</i> by C. Wrenn +(London, 1920).</p> +</blockquote> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Reymont</span> (1924)</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Peasants: Autumn; Winter; Spring; Summer</i>, translated +by Michael H. Dziewicki (Knopf, New York, 1924-1925).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>The Comedienne</i>, translated by Edmund Obecuy (Putnams, +New York, 1920).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Tales by Reymont in Oxford University <i>World’s Classics</i> +(1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1">Extracts from <i>The Promised Land</i> in <i>Modern Slavonic +Literature</i>, edited by Paul Selver (London, 1921).</p> + +<p class="hanging-indent1"><i>Modern Polish Literature</i>; A Course of Lectures at King’s +College, London, by Roman Dyboski Ch. III (Cambridge, +England, 1924).</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[Pg 300]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[Pg 301]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX"> + INDEX + </h2> +</div> + + +<ul class="index"> + <li class="ifrst">Abbey Theatre, The, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Above the Battle</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Across the Prairies</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Actions and Reactions</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Adams, Mme. Juliette, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Adventures in Criticism</i>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>After Bread</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ahlsell, Karoline Henriette, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Aix, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Alladine and Palomides</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Always Ridiculous</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ame Enchantée, L’</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">American-Scandinavian Foundation, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>American-Scandinavian Review</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Amethyst Ring, The</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Anatole France, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224-238</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Anatole France Himself</i>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Anatole France: The Man and His Work</i>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>And Pippa Dances</i>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Andersen, Hans Christian, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Anderson, Vilhelm, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Annette and Sylvie</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Appointment, The</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Archer, William, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ariadne and Blue Beard</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ariosto, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Arles, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Arme Heinrich, Der</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Arne</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Arrabiata, L’</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Art of Versification, The</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Assumption of Hannele, The</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Atlantis</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>At the Gates of the Kingdom</i>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>At the Ghost Hour</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>At the Hilt of the Sword</i>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>August</i>, 1914, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Autumn</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Autumnal Roses</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Avignon, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Baku, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Balestier, Caroline, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Balestier, Wolcott, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Balladen</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Balzac, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bankrupt, The</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Banquet of Wild Beasts, The</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Baring, Maurice, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>Barrès, Maurice, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Barwell, Anna, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Basel, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Baucis and Philemon</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bearers of German Idealism, The</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Beethoven, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Before Dawn</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Belgium at War</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bellman Ballads</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bell Songs</i>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Benavente, Jacinto, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247-252</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bennett, Arnold, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Benoni</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bergson, Henri, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Betrothal, The</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Beyond Human Power</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bickersteth, G. L., <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Binding of the Hair, The</i>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Binion, S. A., <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Birth of God, The</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bismarck, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Björkman, Edwin, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, + <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Björnson, Björnstjerne, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58-71</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, + <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Blake, William, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Blind, The</i>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bloom of Life, The</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Blue Bird, The</i>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bodö, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bojer, Johan, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bologna, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bolpur, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bonds of Interest, The</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Bonheur, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Boni, Albert, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Boyd, Ernest, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brahm, Otto, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Brand</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brandes, Edward, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brandes, Georg, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, + <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brattleboro, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bréal, Michael, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Breslau, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Broken Men, The</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brooks, Van Wyck, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brousson, Jean-Jacques, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Brushwood</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Brushwood Boy, The</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Buchan, John, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Burckhardt, Jacob, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Burgomaster at Stilemonde, The</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Burns, Robert, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Butterflies</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>By the Grave (or Urn) of Shelley</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Byrne, Donn, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Cahiers de la Quinzaine</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Calderon, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Calendau</i>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Caligula</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Can We Still Be Christians?</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cannan, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Captains Courageous</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Captured</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carducci, Giosuè, <a href="#Page_72">72-84</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carman, Bliss, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carrington, H., <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carter, A. Helene, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Cathleen ni Hoolihan</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Celtic revival, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span><i>Celtic Twilight, The</i>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chaitanya Deva, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Charles Men, The</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chater, Arthur G., <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cheshire Cheese Club, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chesterton, Gilbert K., <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Children of the Age</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Children of the Soil</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Chitra</i>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chopin, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Christiania, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Christianity and the New Idealism</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Christ Legends</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Clamecy, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Clark, Barrett H., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, + <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Classicism and Teutonism</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Claudel, Paul, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Clerambault</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Clipped Wings</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Cloud that Lifted, The</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Code of Statutes</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Colas Breugnon</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Colberg</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Colleague Crampton</i>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Colum, Padraic, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Columbia University, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Comedienne, The</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Comprehensive Lexicon of Ancient and Modern Provençal</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Conrad, Michael Georg, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Copenhagen, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Coppée, François, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Cradle Songs</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Creative Philosophy</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Creative Spirits of the Nineteenth Century</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, + <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Creative Unity</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Crescent Moon, The</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, The</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227-231</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Critica ed arte</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Cuchulain of Muirthemne</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Curtin, Jeremiah, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Dalecarlia, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Danish Royal Theatre, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dante, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Danton</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Darwin, Charles, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Daudet, Alphonse, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Day’s Work, The</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Death of Tintagiles</i>, The, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Deirdre</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Deluge</i>, The, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Departmental Ditties</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Devereux, Roy, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Doll’s House, A</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Don Juan</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Doubtful Virtue</i>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dowden, Edward, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Dreamer, The</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Dreamers, The</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dresden, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dreyfus case, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dublin, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dunsany, Lord, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dyboski, Roman, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dynamite, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dynicwicz, C. W., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dziewicki, M. H., <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>“Eagle’s Flight,” <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Echegaray, José, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239-246</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Eddas, The</i>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Editor Lynge</i>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Editor, The</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Emanuel, or Children of the Soil</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Emanuel Quint</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Emerson, Ralph Waldo, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Emigrants, The</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Emperor of Portugallia, The</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Endymion</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>English Flag, The</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Erichsen, Nelly, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ericsson, John, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ervine, St. John, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Essays in Little</i>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Essays on Modern Dramatists</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Essays upon the Fine Arts</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ethics and Modern Thought</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Eucken, Rudolf, <a href="#Page_48">48-57</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Eugen Diederichs Verlag in Jena, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Evans, A. W., <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Expressionism, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Extramundana, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Eyes of Asia</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Farr, Florence, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fay, William, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fenger, Harald, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Félibres, The, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Felice</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Felix Tandem,” <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ferments</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Field of Ermine</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fischer, Kuno, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Fisher Maiden, The</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Five Nations, The</i>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Flach, Pauline Bancroft, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Florian Geyer</i>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Folly or Saintliness</i>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>For Daily Bread</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Forest Murmurs</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Founder’s Day, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + + <li class="indx">France, Anatole (<i><a href="#Page_301">see</a></i> Anatole France)</li> + + <li class="indx">Francke, Kuno, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Freeman, E. A., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx">French Academy, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>French Mons</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>From a Swedish Homestead</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>From Sea to Sea</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>From the Notebook of a Posen</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Frost, Mary A., <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Fundamental Ideas of the Present Day</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Further Adventures of Nils</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Galdós, Pérez-, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gallery, A</i>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Galsworthy, John, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gandhi, Mahatma</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gardener, The</i>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gauntlet, A</i>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>German Classics</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Germinal</i>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ghent, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ghosts</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gibson, Lucy Judge, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gibson, W. R. Boyce, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>Gilkyson, T. W., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Girl from the Marshcroft, The</i>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gitanjali</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gjellerup, Karl, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201-204</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gods and Fighting Men</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gods Are Athirst, The</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Goethe, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gonski, Casimir, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gora</i>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gosse, Sir Edmund, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Governor’s Wife, The</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Graham, James, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Great Galeoto, The</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gregory, Lady, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, + <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Groth, Catherine D., <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Growth of the Soil</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gsell, Paul, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Guedalla, Philip, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Guiney, Dorothy Frances, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Gustav</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Hadrian</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Halta Hulda</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hamsun, Knut, <a href="#Page_213">213-223</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hania</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hannele</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hannibal, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hans Alienus</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hans Lange</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Happy Boy, A</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hardy, Thomas, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Harnack, Adolf, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Harned, Mary, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Harvard University, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hauptmann, Gerhart, <a href="#Page_133">133-147</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hearn, Lafcadio, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heidelberg, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heidenstam, Verner von, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189-196</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heine, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heller, Otto, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Henley, W. E., <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Henry of Aue</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Heretic of Soana, The</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Heretics</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hermann, E., <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Heyse, Paul, <a href="#Page_124">124-133</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hinkson, Katherine Tynan, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Histoire comique</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Histoire contemporaine</i>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Historical Significance of the German People, The</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>History of Rome</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hodge, Thekla E., <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Holland, Maud, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hombrecito, El</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hour-Glass, The</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hovey, Richard, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Howard, Velma Swanston, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Huddlestone, Sisley, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hughes, Rupert, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hugo, Victor, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Human Comedy, The</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Huneker, James, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hunger</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hyde, Douglas, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Hymn to Satan</i>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Ibsen, Henrik, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Idealism in literature, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, + <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span><i>Ideals in Ireland</i>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Ideas of Good and Evil</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>If</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Imago</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Im Paradiese</i>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Independence</i>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In Desert and Wilderness</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In God’s Way</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In Tartar Captivity</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In the Grip of Life</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In the Seven Woods</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Intruder, The</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In Vain</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Invisible Links</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Irish Melodies</i>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Island of the Great Mother</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Isles d’or, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Italian Influences</i>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Jameson, Storm, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Janko, the Musician</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jasmin, Jacques, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Jean-Christophe</i>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, + <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jena University, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Jerusalem</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>John of Abyssinia</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>John Sherman</i>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Johnson, Lionel, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Joyzelle</i>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Jungle Books, The</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Justice, La</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Just So Stories</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Karen Borneman</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kasprowicz, Jan, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Keats, John, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Keller, Gottfried, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Kim</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Kinder der Welt</i>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Kingdom of the Dead, The</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>King of the Dark Chamber</i>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>King, The</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kipling, Alice MacDonald, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kipling, Caroline Balestier, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kipling, John Lockwood, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kipling, Rudyard, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85-103</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Knights of the Cross</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Knudson, Karoline M., <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Knut Hamsun; A Study</i>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Knut Hamsun: His Personality and His Outlook upon Life</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, + <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Kvikne, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Lady Gregory (<i><a href="#Page_305">see</a></i> Gregory)</li> + + <li class="indx">Lagerlöf, Selma, <a href="#Page_104">104-123</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lahore, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lamartine, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lame Hulda</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Land and Sea Tales for Scouts</i>, etc., <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Land of Heart’s Desire, The</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lang, Andrew, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lansing, Ruth, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Larsen, Hanna Arstrup, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Last Centaur, The</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Last of the Vikings, The</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Laughing Truth</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span><i>Lay Down Your Arms</i>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lay of the Leader</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Legendary Romance, A</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Letts, Winifred, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Let Us Follow Him</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Library of the World’s Best Literature</i>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Life of Jeanne d’Arc, The</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Life of the Bee, The</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Life of the Spirit, The</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Life’s Basis and Life’s Ideals</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Life’s Handicap</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Life’s Play</i>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Liliecrona’s Home</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Liluli</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Literary Ideals in Ireland</i>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Little Pierre</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Litwos,” <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lofoden Islands, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lonely Lives</i>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Loups, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lowell Institute, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lucas, Mrs. Edgar, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lucerne, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Lucky Peter</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lucretius, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lynch, Hannah, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Mädchenfeinde</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Madman or Saint</i>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Madrid, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Maeterlinck, Maurice, <a href="#Page_148">148-158</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Magic of an Hour, The</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Magnhild</i>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mahatma Gandhi</i>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Malquerida, La</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Many Inventions</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mårbacka</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mariana</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mary</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mary of Magdala</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mary Magdalene</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Masereel, Frans, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Massis, Henri, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mattos, Alex. Teixeira de, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Maubel, Henri, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Maud, Constance Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx">May, James Lewis, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx">McCabe, Joseph, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Meaning and Value of Life, The</i>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Meltzer, Charles Henry, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mémoires d’une idéaliste</i>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Memoirs of Mistral</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Meredith, George, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Merlin</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mes origines</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Meyer, Conrad, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Meysenburg, Malwida von, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Miall, Bernard, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Michael Kramer</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Michelson, A. A., <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Miller, Katherine, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Milnes, Turquet, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Mimosas,” <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Minna</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mirabeau, Octave, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Miracles of Antichrist</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mireio</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33-36</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mistral, Frédéric, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-41</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, + <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Modern Book of French Verse, The</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Modern Drama in Europe</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Modern Polish Literature</i>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>Mommsen, Theodor, <a href="#Page_42">42-48</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Monna Vanna</i>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Monod, Gabriel, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Montespan, The</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moore, George, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moore, Thomas, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Morgan, Bayard Quincy, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moses, Montrose J., <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Muir, Edwin, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Muir, Willa, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Munich, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Munken Vendt</i>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Münsterberg, Marguerite, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Musicians of Former Days</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Musicians of Today</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>My Friend’s Book</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>My Reminiscences</i>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mysteries</i>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Napoleon III, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Naturalism or Idealism?</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Naulahka, The</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nawench, A. M., <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Necklace of Stars, The</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nero</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nerto</i>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Newly-Married Couple, The</i>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>New Soil</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nielson, C. L., <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nietzsche</i>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nimäi</i>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Niobe</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nirdlinger, Charles, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nobel, Alfred, <a href="#Page_1">1-20</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nobel, Emanuel, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nobel Foundation, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nobel, Ludwig, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nobel, Robert, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nobel, will of, <a href="#Page_10">10-16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nobody is a Prophet</i>, etc., <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Northern Studies</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Norwegian Storthing, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nouvelle Revue</i>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Novalis, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Novellen</i>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Nuove poesie</i>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Odi barbare</i>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Of American Culture</i>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Old Bell-Ringer, The</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Olivades, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Olympian Spring</i>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>On Baile’s Strand</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>On Emerson and Other Essays</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>On Life and Letters</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>On the Bright Shore</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>On the Field of Glory</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>On the Scent</i>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Opium Smokers</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orkan, Ladislaw, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Orsino, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx">O’Shaughnessy, Arthur, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Our Eternity</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Outcast, The</i>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Over the Lofty Mountains</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Oxford University, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Pair of Shoes, A</i>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Palayo, Mendenez, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Palmer, Arthur Hubbell, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>Pan, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pan Michael</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Parisian Portraits</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Parker, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Parker, W. B., <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Parsival</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Passion Flower, The</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Passow, Irene, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pastor Mons</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Peasants in Exile</i>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Peasants, The</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269-272</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Peer Gynt</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pelléas and Mélisande</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Penguin Island</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>People’s Theatre, The</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pepita’s Wedding</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Peter Pan</i>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Phelps, M. Stuart, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Phelps, William Lyon, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Picard, Edmund, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Piedmont</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pierre Nozière</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pilgrimage, A.</i>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pilgrimages and Wander Years</i>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pilgrim Kamanita, The</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pilgrim’s Way, A.</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Plain Tales from the Hills</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Plays in Prose and Verse</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Plessis, Frédéric, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Poème du Rhône, Le</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Poems and Songs</i>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Poland Reborn</i>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Polish Literature, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pontoppidan, Henrik, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-200</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Porter, Noah, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Post Office, The</i>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Pot of Broth, The</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Power of the Dead</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prayers for Mother India</i>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Preston, Harriet Waters, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Primo Vere</i>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Princess Maleine</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prometheus and Epimetheus</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prometheus Unbound</i>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Promised Land, The</i>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Puck of Pook’s Hill</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Punch and Judy and Other Essays</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Quai Malaquais, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Que sais-je?</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Quiller-Couch, Arthur, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Quimby, Mary Ayres, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Quo Vadis</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Recessional, The</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Red Lily, The</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Redman, Ben Ray, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Reid, Forrest, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Religion and Life</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Reminiscences</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Responsibilities</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Revolt of the Angels, The</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Revue Universelle, La</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Rewards and Fairies</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Reymont, Ladislaw, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269-276</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rhys, Ernest, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Richards, T. W., <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Riders to the Sea</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rolland, Romain, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-188</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>Romsdale, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Roosevelt, Theodore, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Root, Elihu, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Roumanille, Joseph, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Roy, Basanta Koomar, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ruysbroeck, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Sacrifice and Other Plays</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sadhana</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Saint Briggitta’s Pilgrimage</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sainte-Beuve</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Saint George and the Dragon</i>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Saint Louis</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Salamander</i>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sanborn, Alvan V., <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sandhya Sangit</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sapphics and Alcaics</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Saturday Night</i>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Scheffel, Joseph Victor, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Schiller, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>School of Princesses, The</i>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Scudder, Vida D., <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Segelfoss Town</i>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Seltzer, Adele, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Seltzer, Thomas, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Selver, Paul, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Serrano, Mary, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Seven Princesses, The</i>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Seven Seas, The</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Shadowy Waters, The</i>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shakespeare, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shaw, George Bernard, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Shay’s 25 Short Plays</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shelley, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sienkiewicz, Henryk, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264-269</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sigurd Slembe</i>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sister Beatrice</i>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sligo, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Smith College, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Socialism; an Analysis</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sohlmann, Ragnar, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Soissons, S. C. de, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Soldiers Three</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Solitudes, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Some Eighteenth Century Byways</i>, etc., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Song of the English, A</i>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Song of the French Roads, A</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Songs of Sunrise</i>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Son of Don Juan, The</i>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Soothsayer, The</i>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Spanish Academy, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Spiritual Life of Modern America, The</i>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Spitteler, Carl, <a href="#Page_205">205-212</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Spreading the News</i>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Spring</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Stalky & Co.</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Stances et poèmes</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Starkie, Walter, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stephens, James, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stimson, Eleanor, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Stolen Child, The</i>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stork, Charles Wharton, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Story of Gösta Berling, The</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Stray Birds</i>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Strettell, Alma, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Strindberg, August, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Struggling Life</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span><i>Studies from Ten Literatures</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Studies in Literature</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Studies in Modern German Literature</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Study of the Modern Drama, A</i>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sully-Prudhomme, René, <a href="#Page_21">21-30</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Summer</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sunken Bell, The</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sunset</i>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Supplication, A</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Suttner, Bertha von, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sweden’s Laureate</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Swedish Academy, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, + <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Symbolism, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Symons, Arthur, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Synge, John, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Synnöve Solbakken</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Tagore, Rabindranath, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-174</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Tales from a Mother of Pearl Casket</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Test, The</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Thaïs</i>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>That Third Woman</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Theseus and Heracles</i>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>They</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Thibault, François Noël, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Thibault, Jacques Anatole, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Thompson, Vance, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Thora van Deken</i>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Those Europeans</i>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Thoughts in Loneliness</i>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Three Poets</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Thy Brother’s House</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Tolstoy</i>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Traffics and Discoveries</i>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Tragedies de la foi, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Treasure of the Humble, The</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Treasure, The</i>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Tree of the Folkungs, The</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Trumbauer, Walter H. P., <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Truth of Religion, The</i>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Truth, The</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Twenty-five Years</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Two Little Misogynists</i>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Underhill, John Garrett, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Under the Autumn Star</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Under the Deodars</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Unknown Guest, The</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Upanishads, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Upsala, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Urbana, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Valdes, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Valera, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Varmland, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vega, Lope de, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Versunkene Glocke, Die</i>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Victoria</i>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vigny, Alfred de, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Voices of Tomorrow</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Vraie religion selon Pascal, La</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Vrais tendresses, Les</i>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>Wackernagel, Wilhelm, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wagner, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wallace, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings, A</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Warsaw, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Weavers, The</i>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wee Willie Winkie</i>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>What Do I Know?</i>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>What Will People Say?</i>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>When the New Wine Blooms</i>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>White Stone, The</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Whittier, J. G., <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wicker-Work Woman, The</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Widgery, Alban G., <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Widman, Joseph Victor, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wiehr, Josef, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wife of the Avenger</i>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Williams, Oakley, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wilson, Woodrow, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wind among the Reeds, The</i>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Winter</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Winter Ballad, A</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>With Fire and Sword</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Without Dogma</i>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wolf, Hugo, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Woman’s Victory</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wonderful Adventures of Nils, The</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Worster, W. W., <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Wrack of the Storm, The</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Yagna, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Years Between, The</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Year 1794, The</i>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Yeats, William Butler, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253-263</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Young Poland, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Zacchæus</i>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zeromski, Stephen, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zola, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zürich, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Zweig, Stefan, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> +</ul> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="tnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note + </h2> + + +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenization was standardized where appropriate. +Italization, and spelling of proper nouns were also standardized.</p> + +<p>In this version, the illustrations are placed differently on the page +than in the original. This was done to keep them on the same page as the +original. Page numbers in the list of Illustrations reflect the position +of the illustration in the original text, but links to the current +position of illustrations.</p> + +<p>Page number references in the <a href="#Page_301">index</a> are as published in the +original publication and have not been checked for accuracy in this eBook.</p> + +<p>Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following changes:</p> + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_65">65</a>: “is a concilatory mind”</td> +<td class="tdl">“is a conciliatory mind”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_178">178</a>: “Original of the Modern”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Origins of the Modern”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_180">180</a>: “falsit es and hypocrisy”</td> +<td class="tdl">“falsities and hypocrisy”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_180">180</a>: “days, under title”</td> +<td class="tdl">“days, under the title”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_201">201</a>: “accept my parish”</td> +<td class="tdl">“accept any parish”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_294">294</a>: “zwie Roman, ubersetzung”</td> +<td class="tdl">“zwei Roman, ubersetzung”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_295">295</a>: “<i>goldens Zweig</i>, Dichtung und Novellenkrauz”</td> +<td class="tdl">“<i>goldene Zweig</i>, Dichtung und Novellenkranz</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_295">295</a>: “<i>Frühesten Erlebmisse</i>”</td> +<td class="tdl">“<i>Frühesten Erlebnisse</i>”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_298">298</a>: “Years; Reminiscencs”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Years; Reminiscences”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_311">311</a>: “Vrai religion selon”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Vraie religion selon”</td> +</tr> +</table> + +</div> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77238 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77238-h/images/cover.jpg b/77238-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..879c58e --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_frontis.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2d4f70 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_frontis.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p104.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p104.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c56bae6 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p104.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p134.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p134.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ddccd4 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p134.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p148.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p148.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4edb84b --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p148.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p160.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p160.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bfd288f --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p160.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p176.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p176.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cfb9d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p176.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p214.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p214.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4af94be --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p214.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p224.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p224.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec777a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p224.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p248.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p248.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8686c97 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p248.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p254.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p254.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d363ce --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p254.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p264.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p264.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..522767c --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p264.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p32.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p32.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2075c1a --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p32.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p58.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p58.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bee6dc --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p58.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_p86.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_p86.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ebe8f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_p86.jpg diff --git a/77238-h/images/i_title.jpg b/77238-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..db3356f --- /dev/null +++ b/77238-h/images/i_title.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acc8709 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77238 +(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77238) |
