Tales of Two Countries | Page 2

the charming
tale "At the Fair," where a little spice of wholesome truth spoils the
thoughtlessly festive mood; and the squalor, the want, the envy, hate,
and greed which prudence and a regard for business compel the
performers to disguise to the public, become the more cruelly visible to
the visitors of the little alley-way at the rear of the tents. In "A Good
Conscience" the satirical note has a still more serious ring; but the same
admirable self-restraint which, next to the power of thought and

expression, is the happiest gift an author's fairy godmother can bestow
upon him, saves Kielland from saying too much--from enforcing his
lesson by marginal comments, _à la_ George Eliot. But he must be
obtuse, indeed, to whom this reticence is not more eloquent and
effective than a page of philosophical moralizing.
"Hope's Clad in April Green" and "The Battle of Waterloo" (the first
and the last tale in the Norwegian edition), are more untinged with a
moral tendency than any of the foregoing. The former is a mere _jeu
d'esprit_, full of good-natured satire on the calf-love of very young
people, and the amusing over-estimate of our importance to which we
are all, at that age, peculiarly liable.
As an organist with vaguely-melodious hints foreshadows in his
prelude the musical motifs which he means to vary and elaborate in his
fugue, so Kielland lightly touched in these "novelettes" the themes
which in his later works he has struck with a fuller volume and power.
What he gave in this little book was it light sketch of his mental
physiognomy, from which, perhaps, his horoscope might be cast and
his literary future predicted.
Though an aristocrat by birth and training, he revealed a strong
sympathy with the toiling masses. But it was a democracy of the brain,
I should fancy, rather than of the heart. As I read the book, twelve years
ago, its tendency puzzled me considerably, remembering, as I did, with
the greatest vividness, the fastidious and elegant personality of the
author. I found it difficult to believe that he was in earnest. The book
seemed to me to betray the whimsical _sans-culottism_ of a man of
pleasure who, when the ball is at an end, sits down with his gloves on
and philosophizes on the artificiality of civilization and the
wholesomeness of honest toil. An indigestion makes him a temporary
communist; but a bottle of seltzer presently reconciles him to his lot,
and restores the equilibrium of the universe. He loves the people at a
distance, can talk prettily about the sturdy son of the soil, who is the
core and marrow of the nation, etc.; but he avoids contact with him, and,
if chance brings them into contact, he loves him with his handkerchief
to his nose.
I may be pardoned for having identified Alexander Kielland with this
type with which I am very familiar; and he convinced me, presently,
that I had done him injustice. In his next book, the admirable novel

Garman and Worse, he showed that his democratic proclivities were
something more than a mood. He showed that he took himself seriously,
and he compelled the public to take him seriously. The tendency which
had only flashed forth here and there in the "novelettes" now revealed
its whole countenance. The author's theme was the life of the
prosperous bourgeoisie in the western coast-towns; he drew their types
with a hand that gave evidence of intimate knowledge. He had himself
sprung from one of these rich ship-owning, patrician families, had been
given every opportunity to study life both at home and abroad, and had
accumulated a fund of knowledge of the world, which he had allowed
quietly to grow before making literary drafts upon it. The same Gallic
perspicacity of style which had charmed in his first book was here in a
heightened degree; and there was, besides, the same underlying
sympathy with progress and what is called the ideas of the age. What
mastery of description, what rich and vigorous colors Kielland had at
his disposal was demonstrated in such scenes as the funeral of Consul
Garman and the burning of the ship. There was, moreover, a delightful
autobiographical note in the book, particularly in boyish experiences of
Gabriel Garman. Such things no man invents, however clever; such
material no imagination supplies, however fertile. Except Fritz Reuter's
Stavenhagen, I know no small town in fiction which is so vividly and
completely individualized, and populated with such living and credible
characters. Take, for instance, the two clergymen, Archdeacon Sparre
and the Rev. Mr. Martens, and it is not necessary to have lived in
Norway in order to recognize and enjoy the faithfulness and the artistic
subtlety of these portraits. If they have a dash of satire (which I will not