read the book, sixteen years ago,
its tendency puzzled me considerably, remembering, as I did, with the
greatest vividness, the fastidious and _distingue_ 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; and 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 draughts 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 the boyish experiences of Gabriel
Garman. Such things no man invents, however clever; such material no
imagination supplies, howeve