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 Juerges 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. Juerges 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
irresolution. To bring the new age into the parsonage of the
reverend obscurantist in the shape of a young girl--the _fiancee_
of the pastor's son--was an interesting experiment which gives
occasion for strong scenes and, at last, for a drawn battle between