a keen-eyed spectator. He is no sentimentalist, and so rich is his
imagination that he passes on rapidly from one scene to the next,
sketching often in a few pages what another novelist would be
content to work out into long chapters or whole volumes. His
sympathy is of the widest, and he makes us see tragedies behind the
little comedies, and comedies behind the little tragedies, of the
seemingly sordid lives of the working people whom he loves. "Pelle"
has conquered the hearts of the reading public of Denmark; there is
that in the book which should conquer also the hearts of a wider
public than that of the little country in which its author was born.

OTTO JESPERSEN,
Professor of English in the University of Copenhagen.

GENTOFTE, COPENHAGEN.
April, 1913.




Pelle the Conqueror




I. BOYHOOD



I