Tales of Two Countries | Page 4

are sent away uncomforted. The delicious joke of the thing is that "St. Peter's" is a rich and exclusive parish, consisting of what is called "the better classes," and has no "abandoned women." Whatever wickedness there may be in St. Peter's is discreetly veiled, and makes no claim upon public charity. The virtuous horror of the secretary when she hears that the "abandoned woman" who calls upon her for aid has a child, though she is unmarried, is both comic and pathetic. It is the clean, "deserving poor," who understand the art of hypocritical humility--it is these whom the society seeks in vain in St. Peter's Parish.
Still another problem of the most vital consequence Kielland has attacked in his two novels, Poison and Fortuna (1884). It is, broadly stated, the problem of education. The hero in both books is Abraham L?vdahl, a well-endowed, healthy, and altogether promising boy who, by the approved modern educational process, is mentally and morally crippled, and the germs of what is great and good in him are systematically smothered by that disrespect for individuality and insistence upon uniformity, which are the curses of a small society. The revolutionary discontent which vibrates in the deepest depth of Kielland's nature; the profound and uncompromising radicalism which smoulders under his polished exterior; the philosophical pessimism which relentlessly condemns all the flimsy and superficial reformatory movements of the day, have found expression in the history of the childhood, youth, and manhood of Abraham Lvdahl. In the first place, it is worthy of note that to Kielland the knowledge which is offered in the guise of intellectual nourishment is poison. It is the dry and dusty accumulation of antiquarian lore, which has little or no application to modern life--it is this which the young man of the higher classes is required to assimilate. Apropos of this, let me quote Dr. G. Brandes, who has summed up the tendency of these two novels with great felicity:
"The author has surveyed the generation to which he himself belongs, and after having scanned these wide domains of emasculation, these prairies of spiritual sterility, these vast plains of servility and irresolution, he has addressed to himself the questions: How does a whole generation become such? How was it possible to nip in the bud all that was fertile and eminent? And he has painted a picture of the history of the development of the present generation in the home-life and school-life of Abraham L?vdahl, in order to show from what kind of parentage those most fortunately situated and best endowed have sprung, and what kind of education they received at home and in the school. This is, indeed, a simple and an excellent theme.
"We first see the child led about upon the wide and withered common of knowledge, with the same sort of meagre fodder for all; we see it trained in mechanical memorizing, in barren knowledge concerning things and forms that are dead and gone; in ignorance concerning the life that is, in contempt for it, and in the consciousness of its privileged position, by dint of its possession of this doubtful culture. We see pride strengthened; the healthy curiosity, the desire to ask questions, killed."
We are apt to console ourselves on this side of the ocean with the idea that these social problems appertain only to the effete monarchies of Europe, and have no application with us. But, though I readily admit that the keenest point of this satire is directed against the small States which, by the tyranny of the dominant mediocrity, cripple much that is good and great by denying it the conditions of growth and development, there is yet a deep and abiding lesson in these two novels which applies to modern civilization in general, exposing glaring defects which are no less prevalent here than in the Old World.
Besides being the author of some minor comedies and a full-grown drama ("The Professor"), Kielland has published two more novels, _St. John's Eve_ (1887) and Snow. The latter is particularly directed against the orthodox Lutheran clergy, of which the Rev. Daniel J��rges is an excellent specimen. He is, in my opinion, not in the least caricatured; but portrayed with a conscientious desire to do justice to his sincerity. Mr. J��rges is a worthy type of the Norwegian country pope, proud and secure in the feeling of his divine authority, passionately hostile to "the age," because he believes it to be hostile to Christ; intolerant of dissent; a guide and ruler of men, a shepherd of the people. The only trouble in Norway, as elsewhere, is that the people will no longer consent to be shepherded. They refuse to be guided and ruled. They rebel against spiritual and secular authority, and follow no longer the bell-wether with the timid gregariousness of servility and