sacrosanct. But a less passionate judgment, while still deprecating
something of the author's violence, will recognize the fact that the
core of the work is a noble idealism in both politics and religion, and
will justify the hot indignation with which the author assails the shams
that in modern society stifle the breath of free and generous souls.

During all these years of writing for the stage Björnson did not,
however, forget that he was also a novelist; and it is in fiction that
he has scored the greatest of his recent triumphs. But the world of
'Synnöve' and 'Arne' is now far behind him. The transition from his
earlier to his later manner as a novelist is marked by two or three
stories delicate in conception but uncertain of utterance, and
relatively unimportant. These books are 'Magnhild' (1877), 'Kaptejn
Mansana' (1879), and 'Stöv' (Dust: 1882). They were, however,
significant of a new development of the author's genius, for they were
the precursors of two great novels soon thereafter to follow. 'Det
Flager i Byen og paa Havnen' (Flags are Flying in Town and Harbor)
appeared in 1884. (Paa Guds Veje) (In God's Way) was published in 1889.
These books are experiments upon a larger scale than their author had
previously attempted in fiction, and neither of them exhibits the
perfect mastery that went to the simpler making of the early peasant
tales. They are somewhat confused and turbulent in style, and it is
evident that their author is groping for adequate means of handling the
unwieldy material brought to his workshop by so many currents of modern
thought. The central theme of 'Det Flager' (in its English translation
called, by the way, 'The Heritage of the Kurts') is the influence of
heredity upon the life of a family group. The process of rehabilitation,
resulting from the introduction of a healthy and vigorous strain into a
stock weakened by the vices and passions of several generations, and
aided by a scientific system of education, is carried on before our